Hello Stephan,
On 11-08-14 20:55, Stephen Warren wrote:
<snip>
No, Linux distros need to be able to install a single bootloader
configuration file to tell the bootloader how to boot.
Don't understand this, I though extlinux is yet another
chainloaded bootloader? I doubt there is "the bootloader".
I don't understand why it needs a single bootloader. It gets
in handy if the last bootloader is known, but I don't even see
why that is required.
This is obviously where the disconnect is...
extlinux is (IIRC) a bootloader yes. However, this patch isn't about
extlinux, but extlinux.conf.
haha, right that is a funny misunderstanding. Yes, extlinux is
indeed a bootloader and I was in the impression you actively
searched for it to chainload it. And to make extlinux a requirement
for distro support... And as I tried to explain I am not that fond of
such an approach in general, and that had nothing to do, as Tom
suggested, with booting FreeBSD, it is just the image I encountered
searching for it in various places. It remains a badly named file
though (for U-boot), but well so be it, I guess.
extlinux.conf is a text file format the defines a menu of bootable
OSs. It's a (de-facto I suppose) standard that's implemented by
extlinux (if indeed that is a piece of SW:-) and also U-Boot and
barebox and likely other bootloaders too.
So, when U-Boot locates extlinux.conf on disk and processes it, it's
parsing a configuration file/menu, not chain-loading/executing another
bootloader.
I see, so shouldn't we document then who is in charge of its format
at least, before we start making a U-boot/distro specific version of it?
<snip example file>
That would require all Linux distros to have specific support to
install boot.scr, which is a bootloader-specific format script file.
Systems that boot using e.g. Barebox or other bootloaders presumably
can't process boot.scr. However, if all bootloaders end up supporting
extlinux.conf, the distro won't care what bootloader is on the HW.
We will see if this works, I am bit skeptical, but it is at least a
whole lot
better then polling all possible options, where I took the patch for. (Well
not all yet, but the start to do so).
Regards,
Jeroen
_______________________________________________
U-Boot mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.denx.de/mailman/listinfo/u-boot
