Can LUA e coming with future Grub2

Can LUA e coming with future Grub2

[y.volta]

hi,

    i get to know the Fancy menu branch has lua supported, and just wondering, the 
official release of Grub2 will have Lua inside ( as a mod )? 

    if so, i'm usre, it will extend grub2 much more: for it can load its function
library and its scripts. Let's suppose we are trying develop a window GUI style menu
system, just like the XOSL does, we can make this as a lua module, user can design
its dialog or controls layout in its scripts and 'require ("gui.so");' to have 
modern window based menu UI. ;-)

    at the same time, we can also use lua to extend the grub.cfg, isn't it?


----------------
y.volta

Re: Can LUA e coming with future Grub2

[Colin D Bennett]

On Wed, 3 Sep 2008 09:08:13 +0800
"y.volta" <y.volta@gmail.com> wrote:

> hi,
> 
>     i get to know the Fancy menu branch has lua supported, and just
> wondering, the official release of Grub2 will have Lua inside ( as a
> mod )? 

It would be cool, to be sure!  I never used Lua before, and it was a
great experience integrating it into GRUB; Lua is very easy and clean
to integrate, and it makes adding totally customizable functionality to
themes really easy.

I haven't had a chance to really discuss the possibility of Lua support
with the core GRUB developers, however.

My plan was to modularize Lua in such a way that it is an optionally
loadable piece of the gfxmenu functionality.  Currently the Lua branch
has a hard dependency on Lua.

>     if so, i'm usre, it will extend grub2 much more: for it can load
> its function library and its scripts. Let's suppose we are trying
> develop a window GUI style menu system, just like the XOSL does, we
> can make this as a lua module, user can design its dialog or controls
> layout in its scripts and 'require ("gui.so");' to have modern window
> based menu UI. ;-)
> 
>     at the same time, we can also use lua to extend the grub.cfg,
> isn't it?

Actually, I think replacing GRUB's "bash-ish" scripting with Lua would
be great in many ways, but it is true that Lua (at ~100 KB) is larger
than the GRUB script engine.

Regards,
Colin

Re: Can LUA e coming with future Grub2

[y.volta]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 575 bytes --]

For the Grub2 internal script engine, yes, it is little. but need more work to be improved. About the size, i think, Lua can be a replacement if this lua.mod is available at runtime. at the same time, why not load gziped mod file from disk? this will reduce the size of lua module: 100,436 bytes -> 49,766.

But the benifit of using Lua, i think, is for graphic menu. the gfxmenu uses a strange script engine, it is hard to learn for a common user; but the Lua, it is easy. ;-) 


So, it is good to have lua support in Grub2.


----------------------
Y.Volta




[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1326 bytes --]

Re: Can LUA e coming with future Grub2

[Bean]

On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 12:56 PM, y.volta <y.volta@gmail.com> wrote:
> For the Grub2 internal script engine, yes, it is little. but need more work
> to be improved. About the size, i think, Lua can be a replacement if this
> lua.mod is available at runtime. at the same time, why not load gziped mod
> file from disk? this will reduce the size of lua module: 100,436 bytes ->
> 49,766.
>
> But the benifit of using Lua, i think, is for graphic menu. the gfxmenu uses
> a strange script engine, it is hard to learn for a common user; but the Lua,
> it is easy. ;-)
>
>
> So, it is good to have lua support in Grub2.

Hi,

In my suggestion to split normal mode, the script engine is separated
and can be replaced, as long as they export a certain interface that
return information like the menu items, etc. But now, I'm waiting for
the handler patch, as it's the basic of the new model.

-- 
Bean

Re: Can LUA e coming with future Grub2

[Robert Millan]

On Wed, Sep 03, 2008 at 04:25:12PM +0800, Bean wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 12:56 PM, y.volta <y.volta@gmail.com> wrote:
> > For the Grub2 internal script engine, yes, it is little. but need more work
> > to be improved. About the size, i think, Lua can be a replacement if this
> > lua.mod is available at runtime. at the same time, why not load gziped mod
> > file from disk? this will reduce the size of lua module: 100,436 bytes ->
> > 49,766.
> >
> > But the benifit of using Lua, i think, is for graphic menu. the gfxmenu uses
> > a strange script engine, it is hard to learn for a common user; but the Lua,
> > it is easy. ;-)
> >
> >
> > So, it is good to have lua support in Grub2.
> 
> Hi,
> 
> In my suggestion to split normal mode, the script engine is separated
> and can be replaced, as long as they export a certain interface that
> return information like the menu items, etc. But now, I'm waiting for
> the handler patch, as it's the basic of the new model.

Note that size is still an issue, though.  For example coreboot users will
usually want to use scripting for the grub.cfg they store in their ROM.

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."

Re: Can LUA e coming with future Grub2

[Vesa Jääskeläinen]

Robert Millan wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 03, 2008 at 04:25:12PM +0800, Bean wrote:
>> On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 12:56 PM, y.volta <y.volta@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> For the Grub2 internal script engine, yes, it is little. but need more work
>>> to be improved. About the size, i think, Lua can be a replacement if this
>>> lua.mod is available at runtime. at the same time, why not load gziped mod
>>> file from disk? this will reduce the size of lua module: 100,436 bytes ->
>>> 49,766.
>>>
>>> But the benifit of using Lua, i think, is for graphic menu. the gfxmenu uses
>>> a strange script engine, it is hard to learn for a common user; but the Lua,
>>> it is easy. ;-)
>>>
>>>
>>> So, it is good to have lua support in Grub2.
>> Hi,
>>
>> In my suggestion to split normal mode, the script engine is separated
>> and can be replaced, as long as they export a certain interface that
>> return information like the menu items, etc. But now, I'm waiting for
>> the handler patch, as it's the basic of the new model.
> 
> Note that size is still an issue, though.  For example coreboot users will
> usually want to use scripting for the grub.cfg they store in their ROM.

Hi,

I like the idea of using Lua personally for graphical menu related
scripting and in my opinion it could be additional script that could be
used.

User could in example defined scripting language in a bit same way that
you do that in HTML pages:

lua:"script-filename.lua"

grub:"exec grub-script-filename"

own-extension:"do this and this effect that is integrated to some other
module"

In order to one of those work, you need to load script module that
registers handler for it.

Do anyone have skills to decipher Lua's license is it compatible with
GPLv3 ?

Thanks,
Vesa Jääskeläinen

Re: Can LUA e coming with future Grub2

[Robert Millan]

On Wed, Sep 03, 2008 at 07:44:33PM +0300, Vesa Jääskeläinen wrote:
> 
> Do anyone have skills to decipher Lua's license is it compatible with
> GPLv3 ?

Yes.  It's a standard MIT/X11 style license.

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."

Re: Can LUA e coming with future Grub2

[y.volta]

Lua has been widely used. for example, the Warcraft, the 'AutoPlay Menu Studio', 'Adobe Photoshop Lightroom'; Samba4, Damn Small Linux, SciTE ...

here are two list:  

http://lua-users.org/wiki/LuaUses, 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lua_%28programming_language%29#Applications

so, i think, we can use Lua in Grub2 freely. just as mentioned above, we can use lua as an optional module in Grub2, any distributions can select using it or not. - but, i think, the Lua scripting will extend the Grub2's functinality in many cases.  

so, i please Collin provide the Lua patch, if you had time. thank you!


-----------------
y.volta