From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.43) id 1PunxT-0005lf-JS for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 02 Mar 2011 10:27:23 -0500 Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=54074 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PunxR-0005lX-Uh for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 02 Mar 2011 10:27:23 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1PunxQ-0003Sg-QH for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 02 Mar 2011 10:27:21 -0500 Received: from mail-ew0-f41.google.com ([209.85.215.41]:38905) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1PunxQ-0003SX-KG for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 02 Mar 2011 10:27:20 -0500 Received: by ewy10 with SMTP id 10so19886ewy.0 for ; Wed, 02 Mar 2011 07:27:19 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to :subject:references:in-reply-to:x-enigmail-version:content-type; bh=qMDopN6afnJ3EbZVoJ6lfmv9k5Fbltm4hjMA8GrXV1E=; b=GtFeuRM3N4EeA7R8wGDy2VnqNIdsude2iInzEF5nLfSK1Q6+1y42NbCCl+vTEINFgV /ERz8t6vwEPXSx8blOqI1jkAMtOVvdYTn52BuAbZe80XETjeQmMqbp4o3jvnK0BOltd/ C+DCYfpN80wVARhr/J6ow9RsU+U0dw435wYbI= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:references :in-reply-to:x-enigmail-version:content-type; b=QXoh1e4n8sml9Rjpnphl53Av0C8wkGoj3CKptoi3Xqflc0Sy17awshBAuWeUYzREgV r1cHSmZnJD/sUGMAVqfr++EXbPQDFdXni3mdtK2Pd98Jd0VmubE3JnIvaBDcmgF8cBqi uH8jnhe3MIFUVe7J/Gs8wHnmgXG3JaS/Ie7KY= Received: by 10.213.0.214 with SMTP id 22mr432358ebc.67.1299079639301; Wed, 02 Mar 2011 07:27:19 -0800 (PST) Received: from debian.x201.phnet (public-docking-hg-2-124.ethz.ch [129.132.247.124]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id q53sm43502eeh.22.2011.03.02.07.27.17 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Wed, 02 Mar 2011 07:27:18 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <4D6E61CF.6030001@gmail.com> Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2011 16:27:11 +0100 From: =?UTF-8?B?VmxhZGltaXIgJ8+GLWNvZGVyL3BoY29kZXInIFNlcmJpbmVua28=?= User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.16) Gecko/20101226 Icedove/3.0.11 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: grub-devel@gnu.org References: In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 1.0.1 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha512; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="------------enigC579992E3F000193EC9DAF61" X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 2) X-Received-From: 209.85.215.41 Subject: Re: Do you think it is possible to develop a tool, which can boot all OS(windows, Linux, Mac OS X) X-BeenThere: grub-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: The development of GNU GRUB List-Id: The development of GNU GRUB List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2011 15:27:23 -0000 This is an OpenPGP/MIME signed message (RFC 2440 and 3156) --------------enigC579992E3F000193EC9DAF61 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On 03/01/2011 08:43 AM, Hui.Du wrote: > Hi, > I think the tool is very helpful that can boot all widely-used OS. This is a primitive view of what bootloader is in the first place. GRUB2 is already able to boot most of widely used OS. Windows is an exception and it can be only chainloaded. > 1. The tool is not a part of a specified OS, it is installed before > any OS setup, after it is installed you can install OS(Windows, Linux, > Mac OS X). Installing anything without a working OS is a PITA. You can however install GRUB2 from LiveCD. This way it acomplishes "installing without having any OS on the disk" > 2. Whenever a OS is re-installed, the co-exist OS do not have any side > effect, the tool can boot all OS still. Many OS installers, install their own bootloaders. Some of them can be easily told not to. Others are very insisting and need a heavy modifications not to. Nothing bootloader can do can prevent installer from overwriting it > 3. Whenever an OS can not be booted, the tool can recovery error. "can not be booted" is a very broad term and is not an actual error description. The range of possible problems is virtually limited only by the OS size. If OS was securely wiped you can't "recover" it other than by reinstalling or restoring from the backup. Both these methods are universal in the sense that they work even if the original computer falls into black hole. Both tasks are readily accomplished with archiver/backup tools rsp OS installer. > 4. The tool can find and config the OS boot list through checking the > disk of a computer . > GRUB2 is able to do this (there is a script by Jordan Uggla) however the OS list changes rarely so regenerating it at every boot is a waste of time in most cases. So in whole what you ask falls into categories of "already done", "done by separate tools" and "can be configured to but is suboptimal and so isn't a default". The only thing which isn't done is "universal OS recovery" since it would require to do the things which are as impossible as it gets (theoretically you can never really erase data according to second thermodynamical principle, but the data is so dispersed in environment that no modern observation method can recover it= =2E) > --=20 > > *Best Regard=20 > Du Hui* > Don't use HTML mail. --=20 Regards Vladimir '=CF=86-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko --------------enigC579992E3F000193EC9DAF61 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iF4EAREKAAYFAk1uYdQACgkQNak7dOguQglY9QEArfj0Sv03Dseh7S9LfGoeAQsG 8axFzSBP1swjCKGaLfoA/2N9K482vDvlJWQxJJIHYcBOnp833UJC2MOkgboDyTn1 =S0IM -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------enigC579992E3F000193EC9DAF61--