[Ppcboot-users] Re: ATA booting.

hi Dan,

> sorry that I've waited so long to reply - I meant to do so earlier
> but haven't had much time lately.
nice to read something from you again :)

> Anyways, Raphael - I think that having ppcboot load all of vmlinuz
> from the first partition is not the right thing to do.
I hope you do not forget that we use embedded devices!

> I think Rob hit it on the head, and we should be loading a boot
> loader off of the first block or two.  Whatever lilo/milo/grub
> takes; but it is one of those that we should be loading, not linux.
do you consider the consequence doint so? we can start a second
project for only load a vmlinuz "stream" to memory?! do you really
want that?!

> My reasoning is that this is so contrary to how all linux systems
> are configured.  We would be "throwing away" or ignoring a lot of
> already written and understood code.
I think that we can not use that code as it is! we have to modify it
because there is no default way devices are connected on embedded
devices :(
the only solutions I see here would be a API within PPCBOOT which will
be used by the linux-loader... but why to maintain two projects if
only one can do it itself?! I do not have any intention to do this!

> All of the stuff that expects a linux system to work this way (boot
> loader at the beginning of a hard disk - which then loads a vmlinuz
> kernel from a file system on the hard disk).
do you really think that linux itselfs expect a bootloader at the beginning?
yes I know that you mean applications that expect the loader in the
boot area of the hd, but can you list me that software you are thinking
about?! this applications are not required for a running embedded
device! you configure it once and it was for ever... so you never need
to change it! ok, there could be one reason for that, if your products
allow the costumer to update the software and you change the linux kernel
version too so you need "dd" to write the new kernel image in the first
partition and everthink works as it should again... where is there
the problem?!

> I ask you to reconsider, please.
of course, Reinhard (rprobst <at> ), Andreas (amaier <at> ) (members of the
mailing-list too) and I talked about this topic too and we have the same
opinion...
dd if=vmlinuz of=/dev/hda1 :)

I hope we can provide a working version in few days when the Philosys
(members of the mailing-list too :) joined our team ;)

--

-- 
Raphael Bossek <raphael.bossek <at> solutions4linux.de> [ICQ #40047651]