Re: Multiple kernel boot in linuxboot.cfg

On Thursday 23 September 2004 22:02, DaveXXX wrote:
> > Opinions? :)
>
> I think having two files will be very confusing and error prone and source
> of problems for users. Developers might understand... but users no.
> Also, if not synchronized, will lead to different behaviour on different
> systems... not good.

Unfortunately, yes.  But, most users don't seem to have too huge problems with 
this. If they do, perhaps they should use the supplied kernel, anyhow!

> Looking at the source code for the current cromwell, the syntax I proposed
> will be no problem for current systems (they will boot the last entry,
> which will be the only one on most systems).

If you have a linuxboot.cfg with four entries, you would have to make the last 
entry the default, as this is what old cromwells will boot.  Also, it doesn't 
just go for the last entry. It goes for the last occurrence of the entry it 
is matching.  Imagine this config:

kernel /kernel
initrd /initrd
append blah

kernel /kernel
initrd /initrd

The old cromwell will hit the last entry in the list, but as it is missing the 
append line, it will pick up the previous appendline.  Yes, I know this can 
be worked around, but it's still kludgy. Better, imho, to confine the simple 
parser to a simple config file, and adopt a more sensible layout. (Grub's has 
the features we need, and it's trivial to ignore the entries we don't 
understand yet.)

> So, there will be backwards compatibility and simplicity for users.

I'm tempted to say "screw backwards compat" to be honest. There are sufficient 
reasons for adopting grub's config that I'm swayed with that right now.  
Mainly, that debian kernel packages, can automatically update the grub.conf 
when installed, for example.

It also makes it easier for the porting of new distros to xbox, too. Which, 
after all, is one of the main reasons we are here to encourage.  Having to 
have a linuxboot.cfg to 'keep in sync' for xbox booting, as well as a 
grub.conf for PC booting is the same problem you mentioned above ;)

I've cornered both Ed (gimli) and Shallax, and both seem to think the 
dual-config idea isn't a problem, and that they would be willing to make the 
changes for their distros to support this. While it's a little ugly doing 
this, for a 'transition period' of perhaps a few distro releases, before we 
officially ditch older cromwell compat (as Xebian did, when we moved to ext3, 
not reiser as root fs - older cromwells only supported reiser) I think the 
short term pain is worth the long term gain.


David

> DaveXXX

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