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Syslinux Changelog

What's new in Syslinux 6.02

Nov 14, 2013
  • efi64: Add support for booting 32-bit kernels.
  • efi: Use the EFI handover protocol when booting kernels if available.
  • Fix various make targets that became broken when switching to per-firmware object directories, including 'make install' and 'make netinstall'.
  • efi: Improve handling of packet loss in UDP stack.
  • tests: Introduce a new regression test framework designed to ensure bugs are not reintroduced once fixed.
  • efi: Implement localboot support.

New in Syslinux 4.04 (Apr 26, 2011)

  • PXELINUX: Fix handling of unqualified DNS names.
  • PXELINUX: Fix timer bug when PXELINUX might be unloaded (Gene Cumm).
  • core/writedec.inc: Fix duplicate declaration and overflow (Gene Cumm).
  • GCC 4.5 fixes.
  • sample directory: Fix Makefile include (Gene Cumm).
  • ver.com: New universal DOS/COMBOOT application to display version information (includes DRMK) (Gene Cumm).
  • rosh.c32: updated; Using getopt() for internal commands to aid parsing options; Fix bugs in ls; add warm reboot and echo (Gene Cumm).
  • com32: fix a file descriptor leak.
  • gfxboot.c32: handle TEXT..ENDTEXT; error out on no LABELs found (Sebastian Herbszt).
  • Fix booting on non-partitioned devices.
  • MBR, isohybrid: Workaround for a BIOS issue on Acer Travelmate and possibly other machines.
  • COM32: Adding ACPI parsing libary
  • HDT: Release 0.4.1 to support ACPI parsing, improved mutli-core/cpu reporting
  • LUA: Updating to 5.1.4-2
  • SYSLINUX: core/diskstart.inc: Reset DS after checksum in case it isn't 0 (Gene Cumm).
  • win64: Script update for additional mingw compiler names (Gene Cumm).
  • diag: New directory for diagnostic-related tools. Add a handoff MBR/VBR and geometry display images (Gene Cumm).
  • MEMDISK: use "mem=" parameter to mark available memory above this point as reserved (core already does alignment) (Gene Cumm).
  • MEMDISK: Additional disk probe checks and debug output (Shao Miller, Gene Cumm).
  • gpxe: add gpxelinuxk.0, based off of undionly.kpxe + new script (Gene Cumm).
  • isohybrid: install the isohdpfx*.bin/isohdppx*.bin files to make isohybrid images in one step with GNU xorriso.
  • PXELINUX: disable a hack that would make localboot work on some machines, but break just about as many. Some machines which worked with "localboot 0" in previous versions may need "localboot -1" in this one. If you have a machine which requires "localboot -1", a copy of the dmidecode or sysdump output would be appreciated.
  • Include a set of diagnostics by Gene Cumm.
  • Fixes for gcc 4.6 and binutils 2.21.51.
  • chain.c32: Allow "uuid" as a synonym to "guid".
  • Handle directory names starting with .. for vfat and iso9660.
  • New MENU HIDDENKEY command to provide a one-keystroke way to activate a boot option from a hidden menu intro screen.

New in Syslinux 4.03 (Nov 22, 2010)

  • Don't hang if no configuration file is found.
  • Better support for booting from MBRs which don't pass handover information.
  • EXTLINUX: Try to be smarter about finding the partition offset.
  • chain.c32: support chainloading Dell Real Mode Kernel (Gene Cumm).
  • chain.c32: fix booting in CHS mode.
  • rosh.c32 updated (Gene Cumm).
  • Fix the -s option to the syslinux/extlinux installer (Arwin Vosselman).
  • isohybrid: fix padding of large images (PJ Pandit).

New in Syslinux 4.02 (Jul 22, 2010)

  • SYSLINUX: correctly handle the case where the -d option is specified with a non-absolute path, i.e. syslinux -d syslinux instead of syslinux -d /syslinux.
  • ISOLINUX: recognize the directory names /boot/syslinux and /syslinux, and the filename syslinux.cfg in addition to the isolinux-specific names. Thus, syslinux.cfg is now a generic name, whereas isolinux.cfg or extlinux.conf is specific to different derivatives.
  • chain.c32: support setting alternate config filename for stage2 of GRUB Legacy (Gert Hulselmans).
  • whichsys.c32: execute a specific command, based on the Syslinux bootloader variant (Gert Hulselmans).
  • lua.c32: a lot of new bindings added to the "syslinux" namespace: VESA, PCI, DMI, kernel loading (Marcel Ritter).
  • btrfs: print a comprehensive error message if compressed or encrypted files are encountered (neither is currently supported.)
  • SYSLINUX: mtools installer: honor TMPDIR, error out on disk full.
  • Handle fallbacks from EDD to CHS, to deal with systems which announce EDD support but don't actually have it.
  • SYSLINUX: the mtools, DOS and win32 installers now use the new command line options.
  • PXELINUX: fix the use of IP addresses in TFTP :: or tftp:// host syntax.
  • SYSLINUX: experimental Win64 installer (syslinux64.exe).

New in Syslinux 4.01 (Jul 3, 2010)

  • ISOLINUX: fix initialization on systems which don't zero low memory.
  • SYSLINUX/EXTLINUX: fix handing of disk read retries in EDD mode.
  • ISOLINUX: change the initialization sequence to avoid problems with certain (old) BIOSes. Special thanks to Helmut Hullen for invaluable debugging support.
  • ifplop.c32: new module which detects if the PLoP Boot Manager already has booted a CDROM or USB drive (Gert Hulselmans).
  • Correct a severe memory overwrite bug, triggered primarily when selecting a very long command line in the menu system.
  • lua.c32: Lua script interpreter, currently experimental.
  • PXELINUX: new option IPAPPEND 4 to append the system UUID to the kernel command line.
  • PXELINUX: display BOOTIF and SYSUUID at startup time, and when Ctrl-N is pressed on the command line.

New in Syslinux 4.00 (Jun 29, 2010)

  • Major code base changes; all filesystem rewritten in C. This work was done primarily by Liu Aleaxander (Yuanhan Liu).
  • EXTLINUX: btrfs and ext4 support. btrfs support was done by Alek Du of Intel.
  • EXTLINUX is no longer a separate derivative; extlinux and syslinux both install the same loader (ldlinux.sys); for the Linux-based installers the extlinux binary is used for a mounted filesystem; the syslinux binary for an unmounted filesystem.
  • When loading a new configuration file with the CONFIG command, one can now also specify a new current directory with an APPEND statement.
  • Full ADV support for Syslinux, so boot-once and MENU SAVE works.
  • Full support of GPT-partitioned disks, including disks and/or parititions larger than 2 TiB (if supported by BIOS.)
  • The GPT handover protocol adjusted to the current T13 committee draft; see doc/gpt.txt.
  • HDT: code cleanup, small bugfixes
  • The "linux" syslinux installer (syslinux-nomtools) now has a command-line syntax closer to the extlinux installer. The mtools, dos and win32 installers will get this new syntax eventually, but it is not implemented yet.
  • chain.c32: support booting GPT partitions by index, GUID, label.
  • chain.c32: support booting the Syslinux partition with "fs".
  • chain.c32: implement gpt.txt hand-over protocol.
  • chain.c32: support for chainloading Grub stage 2.
  • PXELINUX: TFTP URL syntax (tftp://) supported even when not running gPXE/gpxelinux.
  • New ls.c32 module to display the contents of the disk from the command line, and pwd.c32 to display the current directory.
  • rosh.c32 (read only shell) updated and hopefully usable.
  • PXELINUX: Support "localboot -1", just like the other derivatives.
  • gfxboot.com removed in favor of gfxboot.c32.
  • New MENU HELP statement to display fullscreen help text as a result of a menu selection.
  • memdiskfind utility that can be used with the phram driver in the Linux kernel to mount a memdisk.
  • ifcpu.c32: Adding usage when no parameters are given, adding PAE support.
  • ifcpu.c32, ifcpu64.c32: handle more than one argument per target.
  • isohybrid: C version which does not require Perl.
  • New command MENU IMMEDIATE to permit hotkeys to activate immediately without needing Enter.
  • mdiskchk.com supports a --no-sequential (or -n) option to suppress the classic all-drive-probing heuristic. Useful on BIOSes who crash/hang when certain drive numbers are probed.
  • ElTorito.Sys DOS driver now scans drive numbers upwards instead of downwards, in order to avoid a fairly common bug on some BIOSes where probing drive 0xFF causes a failure.

New in Syslinux 3.83 (Oct 6, 2009)

  • This release adds some minor new features, including the ability to add overrides to DHCP options in the pxelinux binary, a new version of the Hardware Detection Tool, and some fixes to the Gfxboot module.
  • It also includes some additional workarounds for broken BIOSes.

New in Syslinux 3.82 (Jun 11, 2009)

  • isohybrid: fix the -partok logic for loading from a partition.
  • ISOLINUX: deal with systems which return from INT 13h with interrupts disabled.
  • Do not invoke the idle handler during large file loads.
  • Simple menu: make ONTIMEOUT work with MENU HIDDEN.
  • PXELINUX: handle TFTP servers which have extra NULs at the end of an OACK packet.

New in Syslinux 3.80 (May 5, 2009)

  • New shuffler mechanism and API.
  • Rewritten mboot.c32 module.
  • The syslinux_boot_linux() function has been simplified.
  • Don't hang trying to boot a "menu quit" label from the CLI.
  • Fix problem with boot-once "sticking" on some BIOSes.
  • isohybrid: fix problem with images over 2 GB in size.
  • APM poweroff module (poweroff.com) by Sebastian Herbszt.
  • ISOLINUX: fix the handling of large directories. Bug found and fixed by Steffen Winterfeldt.

New in Syslinux 3.74 (Apr 10, 2009)

  • New UI directive, which allows a more natural way to specify a menu system (or not.) With the UI directive specifying the menu system, the DEFAULT directive can be used to select the default entry inside the menus.
  • kbdmap.c32: new module to load a new keyboard map dynamically.
  • isohybrid: workaround bug in some versions of binutils.
  • Fix issue with the placement of the initrd on some machines.
  • ifcpu64: fix handling of less than three arguments.
  • Fix bug in the shuffle library when dealing with a very large number of fragments.
  • Documentation fixes by Vicente Jimenez Aguilar.
  • gPXE updated to version 0.9.7.
  • hdt.c32: Hardware Detection Tool, an interactive hardware analyzer module by Erwan Velu.
  • MEMDISK: enable automatic determination of the disk geometry for a large floppy disk image if (and only if) it is formatted with a FAT filesystem.
  • SYSLINUX: fix the handling of .bss files on FAT12/16.
  • Suppress the Loading ... message if "quiet" is specified on the kernel command line.
  • Fix the use of "CONSOLE 0" with menu.c32.
  • Allow COM32 modules to be aware of all memory even in the presence of a memory hole. The "linux.c32" module can be used to load a kernel (or memdisk) plus large initrd on such a system.
  • MBR: produce alternate MBR variants which force the drive number to hd0 (_f variants), or force the drive number to hd0 if the Ctrl key is pressed (_c variants.) Furthermore, add an MBR variant (altmbr*.bin) which ignores the active flag and instead boots the partition number specified in the byte at offset 439 decimal.
  • Add IPAPPEND strings to com32 modules, especially needed for linux.c32.
  • New MENU SAVE directive which saves the latest menu selection until the next boot. Currently only implemented for EXTLINUX.
  • gfxboot.com: *experimental* interface module to Steffen Winterfeldt's "gfxboot" graphical front end (http://gfxboot.sourceforge.net/). Module by Sebastian Herbszt.

New in Syslinux 3.73 (Jan 26, 2009)

  • This release is primarily a collection of fixes.
  • It adds support for passing DHCP information to a Solaris kernel.
  • It adds support for systems that use the incompatible E820 definition from ACPI 3.
  • MEMDISK now defaults to "safeint".

New in Syslinux 3.72 (Sep 26, 2008)

  • This release introduces sevral new features.
  • The most significant one is a new "hybrid mode" for ISOLINUX, which allows a single image to be booted either from CD-ROM or from a hard disk/flash media, for example USB sticks.
  • Additional news includes tab completion of label names, as well as better support for Microsoft SDI images.