> > Ron, what do you think about adding a bootloader (in the linuxBIOS > > tree), that uses the fill_inbuf architecture we already have for > > booting. I don't want to add boot policy in the core of the tree but > > if we had an optional bootloader that shouldn't be a problem. > > I think it's a good idea, it would extend what steve james has already > done for ethernet. You know me, I would rather have linux do this work, > but the mainboard manufacturers are NOT cooperating in giving us those > big FLASH parts :-) > > > And if it shared it's drivers with the main linuxBIOS we could load > > one kernel from anywhere... > > > It might make sense to work with something like etherboot on this but > > having it internal looks easier... > > It just seems like we have no choice. > > Question, though: What do we do about people who want to interact with > the boot loader and use graphics? do we put graphics into linuxbios? Then > it may grow big! > > We've got a problem here ... it's bigger then just the bootloader, maybe. >
Can we rewind for just a second here? We don't need a bootloader IN linuxbios. We can have a very simple scheme that uses the existing elf loader code in linuxbios well. I'm surprised at you Eric, you of all people should appreciate the beauty of the elf-loader scheme you were pushing so hard for earlier. Several possibilities. Although it will be hard to convert, lets assume we want to use Grub for our bootloader. Step 1) Linuxbios's elf loader grabs an image from ROM just like it does now. On to step 2. Step 2) This elf image of about 10k in size probably loads another elf image from the mbr of the hard disk controller. It is so small because it doesn't need to worry about file systems or anything like that. The image it just loaded off of the mbr brings us to step 3. Step 3) This elf image would be grub's stage1.5, which is only smart enough to load a grub stage 2 image from a real filesystem because a grub stage 2 image is far too large for an mbr. This brings us to step 4. Step 4) Grub is a huge honkin' bootloader that will give us pretty menus and lots of functionality. Okay, maybe it's not terribly simple, but it will be mostly transparent and fast. If someone just wants a bootloader that understands ext2fs and loads a multiboot kernel with an already given filename, I'm almost done that. I can't finish it right now however as I have a test tomorrow, but it's reading the kernel image correctly and merely needs to pass the image to etherboot's internal elf loader which is being a bit of a pain. But I can release that shortly, all of Redboot's code is gone. Eric if you have some time and are interested, I'd be happy to send you what I have now so you can take a look at it. It's a bit of a mess but looking very promising. If someone just wants etherboot functionality, again it should be just a simple elf image, Eric has already done that. And it sounds like Eric is done making a bootloader that grabs from a floppy in a raw manner. It doesn't sound like he made it a seperate elf image, but I'd be happy to work on making it one. In short, I feel that yes we have to give up on loading linux as a bootloader for most cases. But that doesn't mean we have to go to the horrible extreme of throwing everything and the kitchen sink into linuxbios. *sigh* Sorry, i just thought we had all came to an understanding about this just a few days ago. - adam
