What's new, bugs, TODO
What's new:
- 0.82:
- You may now have the right brace ('{') on the next line
(may be blanks between) in addition to on the initial
line of image definition.
- Images with no defined position are by default positioned
below the previous image instead of under menu coordinates.
This makes it possible to start the menu in one spot and
then continue it on the other side of the screen and only
have to define the position twice.
- mapdrive -option.
- I must've done something but I guess I've forgotten what...
- 0.81:
- Single-shot autoboot
This feature allows one-time automagical boot of an image
and after that returning to normal behavior.
Programs like rebooter may use this feature.
- dosmenukey -option for bootsectors.
- Improved linux command line editing. You can now edit the default command line or clear it by pressing esc.
- You can now set default image.
- 'fastboot' -> 'autoboot'
- Password support
- bzImage autodetection - "big_linux" is no longer needed.
- Improved background file support
- Penguin background image ;)
- More documentation and comments in sources
- 0.8:
- More documentation
- Minor enhancements
- MBR rewrite should now work for hda.
- Necessary modifications to Visual Chos.
- 0.73 (development release):
- Modularized it
- HD/FD swap
- Dos4Boot
- I even started documentating it in HTML !!!
- Configuration file:
chos.bsect + chos.loader -> bindir
chos.background -> bgfile
chos.map -> mapfile
- 0.72 (development release):
- A few minor bugs were fixed.
- Bootsector modification feature for fooling some stupid
operating systems.
- Visual Chos - configuration editor for X.
- '-view' option and 'showscreen'
- 0.71:
- 0.7:
- New config file image description format, which
can be extended to new options more easily.
- No more need to precede colons on the linux command line
with backslashes :).
- Emergency bootsector is no longer compiled in by default
(There's space for strings in the bootsector).
- See Bugs that've been fixed.
- It now sets environment variable BOOT_IMAGE automagically
- It now also passes "auto" on the command line if booted automagically
(i.e. not started with space and given command line manually)
- Let's you specify hotkey and position of each image on
screen.
- fastboot option
- bzImage (high-loaded (at 1M) kernel) support
- initrd (initial ramdisk) support
- new sample background piccy (a lot better than the old)
- 0.63:
- Added options to specify map file/loader/boot sector/
background file in the config. file.
- The map file is now written on disk when it's ready, not
sector at a time (safer).
- U can now have colons on the linux command line by
preceding 'em with backslashes.
- 0.61:
- New more portable (and smaller) map file format.
- After lots of whining from people 'round the world
you now get the sources too =)
- New installation script
- 0.6:
- Emergency boot sector support - Choose-OS can now be
configured to load an "emergency" boot sector if it can't
load it's own 2nd stage, map file or background.
- Background image support.
- Options to specify menu/timer position.
Fixed bugs:
Bugs
- It miscalculates bios device number for an ide slave device if there is
no master (yes, it is possible to have only slave (at least on some
systems) but usually this is not the case).
- This is a weird bug. I experienced it after having installed windog95
(hey, I wanted to play a few games!) and a friend experienced it when
installing chos (and Linux) for the first time. The problem is that after having
installed chos, with no errors, the old MBR still is there instead
of chos's. Don't ask me why. After installing chos once again it worked
as it should. If anyone knows why this happens please let me know.
- Trouble with SCSI disks (that's not a surprise and not all scsi disk should even work... ;)
- The config file parsing routines are a bit too strict in some cases,
but I'm too lazy to write better - writing parsers sucks anyway...
- If you have spaces in the name of an image, BOOT_IMAGE= will be
the first word, not the whole name. Even quotes won't help since the
kernel doesn't seem to check for 'em.
- On some bioses (at least my Award) it may hang sometimes if
you press a key at a certain moment when loading... A friend told
me that the same problem can occur in dos multi-config menu too but
I haven't tested... I had no problems with AmiBios on my old system
and therefore I consider that a bios bug... Bios patch might
even fix it... unless it is a chos bug...
Todo
- User interface module support. This feature would allow one to, for example, choose between
traditional Choose-OS interface, LILOish interface or even a graphical menu =-)
(and I ain't talkin' 'bout du... er... ANSI graphics this time)... and how about mouse interface?
- Font and 80x50 textmode support
- Fix bugs
- Enhancements to rewrite: extended partitions and multiple simultaneous partition tables in addition to just /dev/hda.
- New features (What can you think of or do?)
- Should do some optimization and remove duplicated/unused code
(I did much of the work done while modularizing, but there still must be something...)