elilo/release.notes

3 . 1 0   R E L E A S E   N O T E S 
===================================

BUILD NOTES
====================
 You will need the following toolchain to build elilo-3.10 from source
 the elilo build environment is optimized for Debian and Debian based distros.
 1. gnu-efi3.0d or greater, elilo-3.10 binaries were built with gnu-efi3.0e-2 
    shipping in Lenny
 2. gcc-4.1.1 or greater, elilo-3.10 binaries were built with:
 	x86    -> 4.2.3-1ubuntu6
 	x86_64 -> 4.2.3-1ubuntu6
 	ia64   -> 4.3.2-1.1
 3. binutils-2.17.50.0.14 or greater, elilo-3.10 binaries were built with:
 	x86    -> 2.18.1-cvs20080103-0ubuntu1
 	x86_64 -> 2.18.1~cvs20080103-0ubuntu1
 	ia64   -> 2.18.1~cvs20080103-7
 
 * if you use a debian based (lenny)build environment you will have no problems
 and setting it up is simple. you will be able to build elilo in 3 steps:
 1. apt-get install gnu-efi, gcc, binutils
 2. apt-get source elilo (or download elilo-3.10.tar.gz from SourceForge.)
 3. cd ./elilo-3.10 and type make

 ** If you use the upstream tarballs for the toolchain you will need to move 
 some files around. 
 GNU-EFI (provides the efi 1.10 and uefi 2.x libraries & api)
 -------
 gnu-efi libraries are installed to /usr/local/lib by the 
 upstream gnu-efi source package. elilo expects them to be in system location 
 /usr/lib. efi includes may be located in /usr/local/include/efi. elilo 
 expects them to be in system location /usr/include/efi.

 BINUTILS (provides the elf conversion utility to produce efi bins)
 --------
 likewise objcopy may be installed to /usr/local/bin by binutils,
 elilo source expects it to be in /usr/bin.


ELILO ON EFI X86_64
=====================
HARD REQUIREMENTS
  Elilo/x86_64 requires efi64 enabled linux kernel i.e. 2.6.21 or newer
  nothing earlier will work, 2.6.21 was the earliest kernel that efi64 
  support went into. You need to compile the kernel with CONFIG_EFI 
  kernel option ON.
  x86_64 platforms with UEFI 2.0 firmware deprecate UGA protocol
  and therefore only the Graphics Output Protocol (GOP) is supported. For
  such platforms, the kernel must be compiled with EFI_FB option ON. This
  will enable early boot messages on the console. Elilo for x86_64
  attempts to query EFI for GOP support and if it fails it defaults to
  text mode which may or may not show you early console ouput depends on
  your efi and physical setup. If efi default console ouput is set to
  serial and you dont have anything attached to the serial port then youre
  not going to see messages from elilo, duh.

WORKING ELILO.CONF FOR EFI X86_64 EXAMPLE
  Here is my elilo.conf from my UEFI2.0/x86_64 workstation which uses GOP.
  shows me console output, what elilo is doing, and kernel boot.

  default=UBUNTU
  chooser=simple
  verbose=5
  delay=30
  append="root=/dev/sda3 vga=0x31e splash showopts"

  image=/vmlinuz-2.6.24-23-generic
          label="UBUNTU"
          description="Ubuntu 2.6.24-23-generic kernel"
          initrd=/initrd.img-2.6.24-23-generic


CHANGES FROM 3.8 TO 3.10
========================
Patch contributions from David Lombard @ Intel and Stuart Hayes @ Dell
thank you.

 * added PTR_FMT 32bit & 64bit pointer translation for correct output
 * elilo hang bugfix x86_64 non-standard kernels with non-traditional start 
   address elilo will pull the start address from the kernel elf header for 2.6
   or newer kernels, map memory and use that start address, else use standard
   1MB default start address. And handle case of overlapping kernels
   and initrds in memory.
 * ported kernel start adress and memory overlap handling to ia32
 * eliminated all possible compiler warnings except those actually
   caused by gnu-efi that cant be fixed here.
 * Debug output improvement, added pauses with visual feedback when
   user sets debug or verbose options.
 * bugfix added missing find_bits function definition back into ia32
   subtree
 * bugfix loader_probe now correctly errors out if no loaders
   registered.