Re: [PATCH] memdisk plus lnxboot extension

[Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>]

On Thu, Jan 24, 2008 at 12:18:43AM +0800, Bean wrote:
> On Jan 23, 2008 4:54 PM, Marco Gerards <mgerards@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> > When is this feature useful?  Can you give an example?  More features
> > can mean more bugs, more maintainance work, etc.  If the feature is
> > not worthwhile for more than one person, I am not sure if it should be
> > included.  Perhaps a better explaination of the problem to solve,
> > instead of what the patch does might help here.
> 
> the most important usage of external initrd is to overcome the size
> limit of core.img.

I understand that it overcomes a size limit, but, in which situations would
this be used?  core.img is primarily targetted at being used with grub-setup
(where memdisk isn't needed), to be chainloaded from GRUB Legacy (where
memdisk isn't necessary either), or to build a rescue floppy (where this
feature, in principle, can't be used).  Do you have other uses of core.img
in mind?

And in the case of rescue floppies, if we find a way to overcome the size
limit via loading memdisk image separately, I don't think using Linux boot
semantics is the best way to do it.  Linux excels at a lot of things, but its
boot mechanism is full of legacy cruft.  I don't think it's the best option
to take as a reference to implement GRUB.

-- 
Robert Millan

<GPLv2> I know my rights; I want my phone call!
<DRM> What use is a phone call… if you are unable to speak?
(as seen on /.)