Re: Revisiting EFI boot stub config file support

["H. Peter Anvin" <hpa-YMNOUZJC4hwAvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>]

On 01/01/2013 07:55 AM, Shea Levy wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> In March last year, I submitted a patch to enable the EFI boot stub to
> read its config arguments from a file on the ESP, both to help with
> booting from livecds and to avoid having to use efibootmgr every time
> you change your boottime arguments. I ended up dropping the submission
> because I ended up coming to the conclusion that tools like rEFInd and
> gummiboot were better suited to the task of boot managing than the
> kernel itself.
> 
> Since then, however, I've received enough emails asking about the status
> of the patch that I think there is room for a simpler entrant into the
> field of linux EFI boot management. This could be in-kernel, as per my
> original patch, or a very simple out-of-kernel (but maybe distributed
> in-tree?) efi image that simply reads linux.conf and boots linux with
> those parameters. My personal bias is still toward handling this
> functionality outside of the kernel itself, but before I started the
> work I thought I'd ask here if anyone thought I should instead bring my
> old patch up-to-date.
> 

I am willing to accept this (but I am not the first-line maintainer,
Matt is) in the kernel EFI stub as long as there are no hard-coded
filenames involved, no automatic behavior, and no "scanning".  Those are
showstoppers, as is adding to the boot time for nonusers.

	-hpa