Changes in 1.45: * Serial console support. See syslinux.doc for details. Changes in 1.44: * Change HIGHMEM_MAX to 38000000h to (hopefully) avoid the kernel stepping on it; 3f000000h was apparently a higher limit than the kernel used! Changes in 1.43: * Add sys2ansi.pl script to display the contents of a colorized SYSLINUX file. * Changed the io_delay once again, after a report that the old delay port causes hangs on some systems. Changes in 1.42: * Frob the "fast A20 gate" port as well as the keyboard controller; will this help systems with problems? * Be even more paranoid about A20, unfortunately even this seems to be not paranoid enough... what I don't understand is that if there is hardware out there *this broken*, how can it run Linux at all? Report an error message rather than hang forever if A20 is stuck. * Include some intermediate files in the distribution, plus provide a "make installer" target for distributors to relink the install programs only. I would prefer the syslinux boot loader proper to be "binary clean" for debuggablity -- use "make clean ; make installer" to rebuild the installers only. Changes in 1.41: * Don't get confused by directories, volume labels, or VFAT long names. * Use INT 15h, AX=0E801h to query memory size before trying INT 15h, AH=88h. This not only provides more headroom between the kernel and the initrd on large-memory machines, but it appears some recent BIOSes actually have started returning garbage for the AH=88h (older) call. * Trust high memory beyond the 15 MB mark if the user has specified it, or if obtained with INT 15h, AH=0E801h (with no memory holes above 1 MB.) Changes in 1.40: * Increase A20M delay and put in a test to avoid problems on certain IBM Thinkpads (thanks to Donnie Barnes of RedHat for vital info on this one.) * Support COMBOOT style boot command images. * Support chain loading (foreign operating systems, e.g. DOS). * Include a new "copybs" DOS utility to copy a boot sector to a file (under Linux, use "dd".) * Fix the DOS installer to work for disks over 32 MB. * SYSLINUX should now handle disks with more than 65536 tracks. Changes in 1.37: * Fix a bug that caused "label" statements in syslinux.cfg to not be handled properly. * Updated the documentation. Among other things, we now allow up to 128 "label" statements. Changes in 1.36: * Fix for booting old (pre-initrd) kernels. * It seems at least some versions of OS/2 doesn't set up all the fields in the superblock correctly. Account for that. * Fix bug that caused boot failure when using the mem= option. Changes in 1.35: * Loading from partitions now should work properly. (Actually tested, this time. You should even be able to dd a floppy to a partition and boot from it.) * Removed large workaround code for an alleged ancient BIOS bug I have never actually seen. The -s option should work on those machines, anyway. * Support for simple keyboard remappings, same as used by LILO (once again to support localization.) The program keytab-lilo.pl from the LILO distribution included to generate such maps. * Added a "safe, slow and stupid" (-s) option to the installers. This option will lobotomize the boot sector to hopefully work on even very buggy BIOSes. Changes in 1.34: * Ability to load a VGA font on bootup (for localized Linux distributions.) Changes in 1.33: * Bug fix in the Linux installer. * Added a workaround for a bug in certain AMI/Intel BIOSes when booting from CD-ROM. * Documentation changes. Changes in 1.32: * FAT16 filesystems are now supported. Changes in 1.31: * Now compiles under Linux, using NASM, rather than using Turbo Assembler under DOS. See http://www.cryogen.com/Nasm for information about NASM. * Linux-hosted SYSLINUX installer, as well as a rewritten DOS installer (now is written in assembler, so we don't need Turbo C.) Changes in 1.30: * Added support for loading bzImage and initrd loading, and made SYSLINUX new-setup-code aware (SYSLINUX 1.30 id=0x31). * Added LILO-style kernel labels; see the LABEL and IMPLICIT keywords in README file. * Added support for colorization of intro and help screens. * The vga= option is now handled correctly. * Massive rewrite of large chunks of the code in order to support the first two new features. Changes in 1.20: * Added simple online help at the "boot:" prompt. * Removed 2880K image as I no longer have access to such a floppy drive. (Donations accepted!!) * Decided to distribute the source in a subdirectory rather than in a nested zipfile. Changes in 1.11: * Removed a sanity check which would cause booting to fail on Phoenix BIOS version 4.03. Apparently this BIOS is buggy. Changes in 1.10: * Added configuration file SYSLINUX.CFG. This file contains all configurable options, and can be edited from any OS which can access an MS-DOS filesystem; there is no longer a need to run SYSLINUX.EXE except to write the boot sector. * Default command line now given by "default" line in config file. * LINUXMSG.TXT and BOOTMSG.TXT hard-coded file names replaced by "display" and "prompt" lines in config file. * LILO-style option appending now supported ("append" line in config file). * Prompt timeout is now supported ("timeout" line in config file). The timeout is cancelled when anything is typed on the command line. * Pressing or at the Loading... stage now aborts the kernel loading in progress and returns the user to the boot: prompt. * The installer now automatically sets the READONLY flag on LDLINUX.SYS. * Added 2880K disk image. Changes in 1.03: * Fixed bug that would prevent booting from double-density floppies and other DOS filesystems with multiple sectors per cluster. * Added 720K disk image. * Changed default kernel name on disk images to LINUX. Changes in 1.02: * Fixed bug that would garble the command line on recent kernels with more than 4 sectors of setup code (this wasn't really a *bug*; rather, a kernel change broke the code. Unfortunately the Linux boot interface is still sorely undocumented). * Added BOOTMSG.TXT file support (message file which does not force display of the boot prompt). Changes in 1.01: * Fixed bug on some (most?) 386 BIOSes would require two boot attempts.