href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
<p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
-4/25/2013, referencing rEFInd 0.6.9</p>
+12/15/2013, referencing rEFInd 0.7.6</p>
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<li>Inclusion of drivers for the Linux ReiserFS and ext2 filesystems in the
main package. (These drivers are absent from rEFInd prior to version
- 0.4.0. See below concerning an ext4fs driver.)</li>
+ 0.4.0. See below concerning drivers for additional filesystems.)</li>
</ul>
<li>Bug fixes, focusing on those that have bothered me personally.</li>
+<li>The ability to specify a configuration file to use at program launch
+ time via the <tt>-c <tt class="variable">filename</tt></tt>
+ command-line option.</li>
+
<li>User-configurable methods of detecting boot loaders:
<ul>
build. Note that some UEFI PCs, such as those with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
lack a usable CSM.</li>
+<li>Improved flexibility in setting the default OS to boot. rEFInd enables specifying the default by any substring in the description. You can also specify multiple defaults, so that if the first isn't available, another will take its place (which is useful when using removable disks). You can also add time specifications to set a default to be used only during certain hours of the day.</li>
+
<li>The ability to fine-tune options passed to EFI boot loaders, via manual configuration.</li>
<li>An option editor to enable you to edit the options passed to an EFI boot loader on a per-boot basis.</li>
<li>The ability to auto-detect Linux initial RAM disk files and to read Linux kernel options from a <tt>refind_linux.conf</tt> file. These features support (nearly) automatic handling of Linux kernels with embedded EFI stub loader support (a new feature with Linux 3.3.0).</li>
+<li>In the absence of a <tt>refind_linux.conf</tt> file, the ability to pass minimal Linux boot options to a kernel based on the contents of <tt>/etc/fstab</tt>. This is limited to cases in which the kernel resides on the Linux root (<tt>/</tt>) filesystem, though, and it won't work if the installation requires any unusual options.</li>
+
<li>Fixes to display problems on many UEFI-based PCs.</li>
+<li>Beginning with version 0.6.10, a screen saver feature, activated by the <tt>screensaver <tt class="variable">seconds</tt></tt> token in <tt>refind.conf</tt>: Set <tt class="variable">seconds</tt> to the number of seconds before the screen will blank to prevent burn-in.</li>
+
<li>Workarounds to file detection bugs in at least one type of UEFI firmware.</li>
<li>Improved detection of itself, to keep rEFInd out of its own boot menu.</li>
<li>An "exit" option (disabled by default), so that you can return to whatever shell or boot manager you used to launch rEFInd, should this ability be desirable. (This feature first appeared in rEFInd 0.2.4.)</li>
-<li>Drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, and ext4fs, which are not included in rEFIt. (The ISO-9660 driver is based on code from the rEFIt project, but was never completed by its original author. It was completed by Oracle for VirtualBox. The ext4fs driver is derived from the rEFIt ext2fs driver.)</li>
+<li>Drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ext4fs, and Btrfs, which are not included in rEFIt. (The ISO-9660 driver is based on code from the rEFIt project, but was never completed by its original author. It was completed by Oracle for VirtualBox. The ext4fs driver is derived from the rEFIt ext2fs driver, and the Btrfs driver is derived from the rEFIt and GRUB 2.0 driver code.)</li>
<li>Beginning with version 0.5.0, the ability to "talk" to the <a href="http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/20303.html">shim boot loader</a> to validate binaries supported by shim or its machine owner key (MOK) list when booting with Secure Boot active. As of version 0.6.0, this support is still crude and buggy; it should be considered an alpha-level feature at the moment.</li>