Softpedia >Linux >System >Boot >GNU GRUB >  Changelog

GNU GRUB Changelog

What's new in GNU GRUB 2.04

Jul 6, 2019
  • GCC 8 and 9 support.
  • Gnulib integration overhaul.
  • RISC-V support.
  • Xen PVH support.
  • Native UEFI secure boot support.
  • UEFI TPM driver.
  • New IEEE 1275 obdisk driver.
  • Btrfs RAID 5 and RIAD 6 support.
  • PARTUUID support.
  • VLAN support.
  • Native DHCP support.
  • Many ARM and ARM64 fixes.
  • Many SPARC fixes.
  • Many IEEE 1275 fixes.
  • ...and tons of other fixes and cleanups...

New in GNU GRUB 2.02 (Apr 27, 2017)

  • New/improved filesystem and disk support:
  • Big-endian UFS1.
  • Experimental 64-bit ext2 support.
  • Various fixes for non-512-byte sector devices.
  • New `proc' filesystem framework, used by LUKS disks.
  • Fix DM-RAID partition handling.
  • New `nativedisk' command to switch from firmware to native disk drivers.
  • Compressed HFS+.
  • DragonFly BSD labels.
  • CBFS (coreboot).
  • Handle partitioned LVM properly.
  • Use LVM UUIDs whenever possible.
  • GPT PReP.
  • New `progress' module that shows progress information while reading files.
  • ZFS features support.
  • ZFS LZ4 support.
  • XFS V5 format support.
  • LVM RAID1 support.
  • New/improved terminal and video support:
  • Monochrome text (matching `hercules' in GRUB Legacy).
  • Morse code output using system speaker.
  • `spkmodem' output (simple data protocol using system speaker).
  • Handle Japanese special keys.
  • coreboot framebuffer.
  • Serial on ARC.
  • Native vt100 handling for grub-emu, replacing the use of the curses library.
  • New gfxmenu options for terminal window positioning, theme background image handling, and scrollbar padding, plus `item_pixmap_style' and `highlight_overlay'.
  • Support several more image types (paletted and greyscale).
  • Boot protocol improvements:
  • Support Apple FAT binaries on non-Apple platforms.
  • Improve FreeDOS direct loading support compatibility.
  • Enable `linux16' on all x86 platforms, not just BIOS.
  • New TrueCrypt ISO loader.
  • multiboot2 boot-services EFI specification.
  • multiboot2 EFI memory map specification.
  • multiboot2 full-file specfication.
  • New/improved network support:
  • New variables `net_default_*' containing properties of the default interface.
  • Autoload `http' and `tftp' modules if necessary.
  • Improve TFTP robustness.
  • Parse `nd' disk names in GRUB Legacy configuration files.
  • Issue separate DNS queries for IPv4 and IPv6.
  • Support IPv6 Router Advertisement to configure default router.
  • New variable net__next_server containing next server from BOOTP reply.
  • Coreboot improvements:
  • CBFS support both in on-disk images (loopback) and flash.
  • Ability to launch another payload from flash or disk
  • Coreboot framebuffer
  • CBMEMC support (both logging and inspecting logs)
  • Command for inspecting coreboot timestamps (`coreboot_boottime').
  • Command for inspecting coreboot tables (`lscoreboot').
  • New target default_payload.elf.
  • Increased maximal core size.
  • Prefer pmtimer for TSC calibration.
  • New/improved platform support:
  • New `efifwsetup' and `lsefi' commands on EFI platforms.
  • New `cmosdump' and `cmosset' commands on platforms with CMOS support.
  • New command `pcidump' for PCI platforms.
  • Improve opcode parsing in ACPI halt implementation.
  • Use the TSC as a possible time source on i386-ieee1275.
  • Merge PowerPC grub-mkrescue implementation with the common one.
  • Support grub-mkrescue on i386-ieee1275, sparc64, bootinfo machines such as pSeries, and mips-arc.
  • Make grub-mkrescue better support Apple Intel Macs on CD.
  • Enable GRUB Legacy configuration file parsing on EFI.
  • Support halt for Loongson 2E.
  • ARM U-Boot and EFI ports.
  • Reorganise platform-dependent code in utilities to avoid #ifdef mess.
  • AROS and Haiku support for userspace utilities.
  • Xen PV port.
  • Fix EFI stack alignment.
  • ARM64 EFI port.
  • On Linux, read partition start offsets from sysfs if possible.
  • New grub-macbless utility, and better integration with Mac firmware in grub-install.
  • Support Yeeloong 3A.
  • Add `cpuid --pae' option to detect Physical Address Extension on x86.
  • Support for USB debug dongles.
  • Support for *-emu on all platforms (previously only i386/x86_64 worked).
  • Support *-emu on Windows.
  • New platform `none' which builds only user level utilities. This is now default if target CPU is not supported.
  • Support for booting little-endian Linux kernel on powerpc.
  • Support network boot with Oracle sun4v vnet devices.
  • Added SAS disks to the IEEE 1275 Open Firmware device list.
  • Try multiple methods for TSC (timestamp counter) calibration - PIT, pmtimer, EFI Stall. If everything fails, use hardcoded frequency 800MHz.
  • Support Hyper-V Gen2 platforms which lack PIT for TSC calibration.
  • Map UEFI Persistent Memory to E820 persistent memory.
  • New Xen loader on ARM64.
  • Respect alignment requirement for block device IO buffers on EFI.
  • Security:
  • Add optional facility to enforce that all files read by the core image from disk have a valid detached digital signature.
  • Performance:
  • Avoid costly division operations in many places.
  • New boot time analysis framework (`./configure --enable-boot-time').
  • Initialise USB ports in parallel.
  • New `testspeed' command to test file read speed.
  • Speed-up gfxterm by storing intermediate results in more compact format.
  • Lazy LVM/mdraid scan.
  • Disk hints.
  • Scripting:
  • New `eval' and `tr' commands.
  • grub-script-check fails on scripts containing no commands.
  • Installation and other utility improvements:
  • Add option to compress files on installation or image creation.
  • Using grub-reboot no longer requires setting `GRUB_DEFAULT=saved'.
  • Support probing EFI System Partition (requires os-prober >= 1.58).
  • Fix inconsistent use of `GRUB_CRYPTODISK_ENABLE' and `GRUB_ENABLE_CRYPTODISK'; the latter is now used consistently.
  • grub-mount handles symbolic links to directories.
  • Support disabling submenus with `GRUB_DISABLE_SUBMENU' configuration key for grub-mkconfig.
  • grub-install, grub-mknetdir, grub-mkrescue, and grub-mkstandalone rewritten in C. They should now work in supported non-Unix-like environments.
  • Native mingw support.
  • Ability to install on EFI under windows.
  • Reorganise timeout handling using new `timeout_style' environment variable and `GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE' configuration key for grub-mkconfig. Menu hotkeys pressed during a hidden timeout now boot the corresponding menu entry immediately.
  • New `file' command and grub-file utility to check file types.
  • New syslinux configuration file parser.
  • Set menu entry class to primary OS name returned by os-prober to display OS specific icon.
  • On Linux x86 detect EFI word size in grub-install and automatically select correct platform (x86_64-efi or i386-efi) to install. Requires Linux kernel 4.0 or higher.
  • Build system:
  • Remove all uses of nested functions; GRUB no longer requires an executable stack.
  • Fix documentation build with Texinfo >= 5.1.
  • More robust and documented cross-compiling support.
  • Partial clang support for some platforms (experimental).
  • Partial mingw64 x86_64-efi compile support (highly experimental).
  • Partial mingw32 i386-(other than already present i386-pc) compile support (highly experimental).
  • Support for grub-mkpasswd on Windows.
  • Eliminate the use of AutoGen. This allowed some performance improvements to the build system.
  • Remove variable length arrays.
  • OpenBSD compile and tools support (NetBSD and FreeBSD were already supported).
  • Fix build with FreeType >= 2.5.1.
  • Make gentpl.py compatible with Python 3. It now requires at least Python 2.6.
  • modinfo.sh contains build information now.
  • Added many new tests to improve robustness.
  • Target is built without libgcc now. Necessary builtins are reimplemented directly. This removes requirement for target-specific runtime on build system.
  • emu libusb support removed (was broken and unmaintained).
  • powerpc64le compile support.
  • Use fixed timestamp when generating GRUB image for reproducible builds.
  • Verify at build time that modules contain only supported relocations and their structure matches what boot-time module loader expects.
  • Do not require fonts on powerpc-ieee1275.

New in GNU GRUB 2.02 Beta 2 (Nov 10, 2014)

  • New/improved filesystem and disk support:
  • Big-endian UFS1.
  • Experimental 64-bit ext2 support.
  • Various fixes for non-512-byte sector devices.
  • New `proc' filesystem framework, used by LUKS disks.
  • Fix DM-RAID partition handling.
  • New `nativedisk' command to switch from firmware to native disk drivers.
  • Compressed HFS+.
  • DragonFly BSD labels.
  • CBFS (coreboot).
  • Handle partitioned LVM properly.
  • Use LVM UUIDs whenever possible.
  • GPT PReP.
  • New `progress' module that shows progress information while reading files.
  • ZFS features support.
  • ZFS LZ4 support.
  • New/improved terminal and video support:
  • Monochrome text (matching `hercules' in GRUB Legacy).
  • Morse code output using system speaker.
  • `spkmodem' output (simple data protocol using system speaker).
  • Handle Japanese special keys.
  • coreboot framebuffer.
  • Serial on ARC.
  • Native vt100 handling for grub-emu, replacing the use of the curses library.
  • New gfxmenu options for terminal window positioning, theme background image handling, and scrollbar padding, plus `item_pixmap_style' and `highlight_overlay'.
  • Support several more image types (paletted and greyscale).
  • Boot protocol improvements:
  • Support Apple FAT binaries on non-Apple platforms.
  • Improve FreeDOS direct loading support compatibility.
  • Enable `linux16' on all x86 platforms, not just BIOS.
  • New TrueCrypt ISO loader.
  • multiboot2 boot-services EFI specification.
  • multiboot2 EFI memory map specification.
  • multiboot2 full-file specfication.
  • New/improved network support:
  • New variables `net_default_*' containing properties of the default interface.
  • Autoload `http' and `tftp' modules if necessary.
  • Improve TFTP robustness.
  • Parse `nd' disk names in GRUB Legacy configuration files.
  • Issue separate DNS queries for IPv4 and IPv6.
  • Coreboot improvements:
  • CBFS support both in on-disk images (loopback) and flash.
  • Ability to launch another payload from flash or disk
  • Coreboot framebuffer
  • CBMEMC support (both logging and inspecting logs)
  • Command for inspecting coreboot timestamps (`coreboot_boottime').
  • Command for inspecting coreboot tables (`lscoreboot').
  • New target default_payload.elf.
  • Increased maximal core size.
  • New/improved platform support:
  • New `efifwsetup' and `lsefi' commands on EFI platforms.
  • New `cmosdump' and `cmosset' commands on platforms with CMOS support.
  • New command `pcidump' for PCI platforms.
  • Improve opcode parsing in ACPI halt implementation.
  • Use the TSC as a possible time source on i386-ieee1275.
  • Merge PowerPC grub-mkrescue implementation with the common one.
  • Support grub-mkrescue on i386-ieee1275, sparc64, bootinfo machines such as pSeries, and mips-arc.
  • Make grub-mkrescue better support Apple Intel Macs on CD.
  • Enable GRUB Legacy configuration file parsing on EFI.
  • Support halt for Loongson 2E.
  • ARM U-Boot and EFI ports.
  • Reorganise platform-dependent code in utilities to avoid #ifdef mess.
  • AROS and Haiku support for userspace utilities.
  • Xen PV port.
  • Fix EFI stack alignment.
  • ARM64 EFI port.
  • On Linux, read partition start offsets from sysfs if possible.
  • New grub-macbless utility, and better integration with Mac firmware in grub-install.
  • Support Yeeloong 3A.
  • Add `cpuid --pae' option to detect Physical Address Extension on x86.
  • Support for USB debug dongles.
  • Support for *-emu on all platforms (previously only i386/x86_64 worked).
  • Support *-emu on Windows.
  • Security:
  • Add optional facility to enforce that all files read by the core image from disk have a valid detached digital signature.
  • Performance:
  • Avoid costly division operations in many places.
  • New boot time analysis framework (`./configure --enable-boot-time').
  • Initialise USB ports in parallel.
  • New `testspeed' command to test file read speed.
  • Speed-up gfxterm by storing intermediate results in more compact format.
  • Lazy LVM/mdraid scan.
  • Disk hints.
  • Scripting:
  • New `eval' and `tr' commands.
  • grub-script-check fails on scripts containing no commands.
  • Installation and other utility improvements:
  • Add option to compress files on installation or image creation.
  • Using grub-reboot no longer requires setting `GRUB_DEFAULT=saved'.
  • Support probing EFI System Partition (requires os-prober >= 1.58).
  • Fix inconsistent use of `GRUB_CRYPTODISK_ENABLE' and `GRUB_ENABLE_CRYPTODISK'; the latter is now used consistently.
  • grub-mount handles symbolic links to directories.
  • Support disabling submenus with `GRUB_DISABLE_SUBMENU' configuration key for grub-mkconfig.
  • grub-install, grub-mknetdir, grub-mkrescue, and grub-mkstandalone rewritten in C. They should now work in supported non-Unix-like environments.
  • Native mingw support.
  • Ability to install on EFI under windows.
  • Reorganise timeout handling using new `timeout_style' environment variable and `GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE' configuration key for grub-mkconfig. Menu hotkeys pressed during a hidden timeout now boot the corresponding menu entry immediately.
  • New `file' command and grub-file utility to check file types.
  • New syslinux configuration file parser.
  • Build system:
  • Remove all uses of nested functions; GRUB no longer requires an executable stack.
  • Fix documentation build with Texinfo >= 5.1.
  • More robust and documented cross-compiling support.
  • Partial clang support for some platforms (experimental).
  • Partial mingw64 x86_64-efi compile support (highly experimental).
  • Partial mingw32 i386-(other than already present i386-pc) compile support (highly experimental).
  • Support for grub-mkpasswd on Windows.
  • Eliminate the use of AutoGen. This allowed some performance improvements to the build system.
  • Remove variable length arrays.
  • OpenBSD compile and tools support (NetBSD and FreeBSD were already supported).
  • Fix build with FreeType >= 2.5.1.
  • Make gentpl.py compatible with Python 3. It now requires at least Python 2.6.
  • modinfo.sh contains build information now.
  • Added many new tests to improve robustness.
  • Revision control moved to git.

New in GNU GRUB 1.99 (May 16, 2011)

  • Keyboard layouts support.
  • Parser for GRUB Legacy configuration files.
  • Extend `vbeinfo' and `vbetest' commands to non-VBE graphics, as `videoinfo' and `videotest'.
  • New `lsefisystab', `lssal', and `lsefimmap' commands on EFI platforms.
  • Support explicit user claim that a device is BIOS-visible. Devices listed in device.map will be assumed to be readable using only BIOS facilities, rather than anything more complex such as LVM or RAID.
  • New bash-completion script for GRUB utilities.
  • Use ACPI to shut down if possible.
  • New `lsacpi' command.
  • New `--boot-directory' option to `grub-install', `grub-reboot', and `grub-set-default', with clearer semantics than the previous `--root-directory' option.
  • Rename CD-ROM device to "cd" on BIOS platforms.
  • Transparent decompression filters.
  • Simpler PXE image generation. New `grub-mknetdir' utility to generate netboot directory trees.
  • New relocator. Allows for more kernel support and more straightforward loader writing.
  • Handle USB pendrives exposed as floppies.
  • New Automake-based build system.
  • Add `sendkey' command (i386-pc only).
  • Support 1.x versions of mdadm metadata.
  • Fix corruption when reading Reiserfs directory entries.
  • Bidirectional text and diacritics support.
  • Change grub-mkdevicemap to emit /dev/disk/by-id/ names where possible on GNU/Linux.
  • Add `grub-mkconfig' support for Xen with Linux.
  • Add `grub-mkconfig' support for initrd images on Fedora 13.
  • Support >3GiB and

New in GNU GRUB 1.98 (Mar 7, 2010)

  • Multiboot on EFI support.
  • Saved default menu entry support, with new utilities `grub-reboot' and `grub-set-default'.
  • Unit testing framework.
  • Support for multiple terminals.
  • Encrypted password support, with a new utility `grub-mkpasswd-pbkdf2'.
  • `grub-mkfloppy' removed; use `grub-mkrescue' to create floppy images.
  • Add grub-probe support for GNU/Hurd.
  • Add support for gettext.

New in GNU GRUB 1.97.1 (Nov 10, 2009)

  • Fixes security issue