href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
<p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
-1/16/2013, referencing rEFInd 0.6.5</p>
+6/18/2013, referencing rEFInd 0.6.12</p>
<p>I'm a technical writer and consultant specializing in Linux technologies. This Web page is provided free of charge and with no annoying outside ads; however, I did take time to prepare it, and Web hosting does cost money. If you find this Web page useful, please consider making a small donation to help keep this site up and running. Thanks!</p>
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<hr />
systems with a limited number of configurations. Therefore, if you
try rEFInd and run into bugs, please report them to me!</li>
- <li>I have little talent with graphics manipulation programs, so
- rEFInd's boot logo, such as it is, is pretty weak. If you have
- artistic talent and would like to create a rEFInd logo, please feel
- free to send it to me. I won't make any final decision about
- changes until at least June 30 of 2012.</li>
-
<li>rEFIt's original design, and hence rEFInd's design, enables easy
theming by replacing icon files. If you'd like to design a new
theme for rEFInd, feel free to submit it. I might or might not
rEFInd can't use the icon. The ability to scale images to the
desired size would be useful.</li>
+ <li>A way to set the color of the font would be useful for theming
+ purposes.</li>
+
+ <li>The program's font features could be greatly improved by enabling
+ use of a standard font format, by enabling use of non-ASCII
+ characters, and by enabling use of variable-width as well as
+ monospace fonts.</li>
+
<li>I would like to be able to specify the volume on which a boot
loader resides using a partition GUID value, but extracting a GUID
from the partition data is harder than extracting the volume's
the list, it will take precedence over the normal hard disk
default.</li>
- <li>Along the lines of the previous item, the default_selection might
- be expanded to support some form of specification of disk types, as
- in a special entry for any optical disk or any external disk, no
- matter what its name is.</li>
+ <li>Along the lines of the previous item, the
+ <tt>default_selection</tt> might be expanded to support some form
+ of specification of disk types, as in a special entry for any
+ optical disk or any external disk, no matter what its name is.</li>
<li>It would be useful to be able to specify paths to boot loaders
and/or initial RAM disks relative to the rEFInd directory (or the
<ul>
+ <li>I've been receiving reports of blank screens when using rEFInd on
+ some recent Mac models. I've investigated this with the help of one
+ user, and I suspect that Apple has made changes to its firmware
+ that are likely to affect just about any EFI program. I don't know
+ how to fix the problem at the moment, though; I need both
+ documentation and access to an afflicted computer to do the
+ necessary work, and I have neither.</li>
+
<li>The <a href="http://www.rodsbooks.com/gb-hybrid-efi/">Gigabyte
Hybrid EFI</a> has a bug that causes the allegedly case-insensitive
<tt>StriCmp()</tt> function to perform a case-sensitive comparison.
Apple-specific EFI extension, and I know of no standard EFI way to
do it.</li>
+ <li>A couple of Mac users have reported that the brightness-adjustment
+ features in Windows don't work when Windows is booted via rEFInd,
+ but that these features do work when Windows is booted via the
+ Mac's built-in boot manager. Unfortunately, I have no idea what
+ causes this problem, I have no Windows installation on my one
+ (elderly) Mac, and I have no way to debug it. Therefore, it's
+ unlikely that I'll be able to fix this problem myself; but if you
+ have the equipment and skill to do so, I'd be interested in
+ receiving a patch.</li>
+
<li>The re-scan feature occasionally produces odd results, such as
ignoring new media or keeping old media that have been ejected.
This should be investigated and fixed.</li>
<li>The code is in need of review to search for memory leaks and
similar problems.</li>
+ <li>If the user has a Linux software RAID 1 array, rEFInd will detect
+ kernels or boot loaders in RAID 1 twice. This could be fixed by
+ adding a check for duplicate filesystem UUIDs to the
+ partition-scanning code.</li>
+
</ul></li> <!-- Known bugs -->
<li><b>New features I'd like to add:</b>
loader settings—say, to disable one specific boot loader or
change its icon.</li>
- <li>A way to set the color of the font would be useful for theming
- purposes.</li>
-
- <li>Going further, the ability to load arbitrary other fonts, ideally
- in a standard format, would be desirable for theming purposes.</li>
+ <li>The ability to rotate the display for users who rotate their
+ monitors would be helpful.</li>
<li>A GUI configuration tool would be nice, but it's low on my personal
priority list. If you'd like to contribute, I prefer something