Hmm, it's just what I got from Derrick, didn't really look at it that precisely.

From the looks of it, the default value is actually 'false', or '0' and in that setting it sends 'disable coldstart' and sets the tracking mode to 'car'. So the description in the README is a bit off and your interpretation is right.

These initialization sequences should get dropped by GPS's that don't understand them, the coldstart= option really only exists to allow a possibly broken gps to work. I personally wouldn't have even added that option until someone complained

The distance-to-next-waypoint is now part of the (popup) description that scrolls on the bottom of the map display. I haven't had a time to really play with it much as my car was in the garage for a couple of weeks. Just got it back last friday.