On Tue, Jan 10, 2006 at 04:10:32PM +0200, Cyril Plisko wrote: > 1. Having an *easy* accessible alternative boot_archive (FailSafe mode) > 2. Having many boot environments created with Live Upgrade. > > You may argue that these things are solvable (and they indeed are) by > some other means. But do not forget that if the entire interface to the boot > magic is by editing the single file (menu.lst/grub.cnf) then all the supported > platform (SPARC, x86, PPC. etc) became significantly easy to develop > [this things] on and QA and support, etc. > That is just an example of how the choice of boot mechanism can affect > other distant projects in Solaris.
The pegasos now boots using a forth-written boot menu, called menu, and found on the first partition. But indeed, a boot menu is nice to have. That said, the CHRP specification calls for a bootmenu-like thingy which is not currently fully implemented on the pegasos, but which is quite high on my TODO list, which would allow for graphical chosing of many alternative. But i think you are going ahead of yourself there, before having to play with failback, you first need to get a booting kernel and boot_archive, then you can worry about small little details like the boot menu, especially, since it is clear you can boot the the kernel from the OBP/OF command line, or switch a symlink on your tftp server or something such. Hey, that is a nice approach, you could have your boot menu on the server side :) > Now as for our current plan - the method you've just described gets us > to the boot attempt nearly instantly, which is magnificent. Frankly speaking > I wasn't aware until yesterday that you can load two files via tftp. > (It appears quite obvious to me now - but it takes someone to tell you > that first to realize it :) ) :) > And I think I didn't emphasized in my previous mail that I was thinking > on the long term options. Right now we have practically one choice - > to do dual file load. ... > Wait a sec - it just appeared to me that we are essentially talking about > virtually same thing - the only difference is whether external "bells and > whistles" (GRUB2) are used or not. Exact. > ... I just looked again at your mail and it seems like I am just repeating > after you. So why does it feels like arguing ??? ;) No. No arguing here. :) > I think we'll just go with your method for now, get it booting and then > when we'll be sitting under the palm and drinking beer (one day I hope!) > we'll continue this topic. :) > How is that for a plan ? Sounds great. And like said, grub2 is supposed to work on pegasos, and will implement the exact same boot method, so you can just use it. It doesn't support yet network booting though, i hear. > P.S. Plenty of palms here and pretty hot too in a couple of months. :) Friendly, Sven Luther
