From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2003 14:12:49 -0800 From: Ethan Benson To: linuxppc-dev@lists.linuxppc.org Subject: Re: [RFC] A stand-alone boot loader for PReP Message-ID: <20030601221249.GQ32642@plato.local.lan> References: <62639.213.107.143.228.1054413401.squirrel@www.solinno.co.uk> <20030531214950.GP32642@plato.local.lan> <63891.213.107.143.228.1054475827.squirrel@www.solinno.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <63891.213.107.143.228.1054475827.squirrel@www.solinno.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-linuxppc-dev@lists.linuxppc.org List-Id: On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 02:57:07PM +0100, Leigh Brown wrote: > > Ethan Benson said: > > > > On Sat, May 31, 2003 at 09:36:41PM +0100, Leigh Brown wrote: > >> > >> [If you bore easily: > >> http://www.solinno.co.uk/leigh/pablo/pablo-0.2.tar.gz ] > >> > >> Ever since I got Linux going on my PReP box I've been unhappy about > >> the boot loader. There is no lilo or yaboot equivalent for PReP and > >> it's a pain. For the past several months I've been trying to devise > >> a way of making a bootloader similar to lilo or yaboot, and this is > >> the best I've been able to come up with. > > > > I have been working (slowly due to lack of time) on a complete > > rewrite of yaboot, the plan is for it to support any OF based > > hardware (not limited to powerpc), and to design it in a general way > > so it can accomidate the various ways different architectures boot. > > > > to start with im writing a prom-libc library so all the usual stdc > > stuff doesn't have to be reinvented crappilly like every other > > loader seems to do, as well as get the prom specific stuff out of > > bootloaders and into a common place (it also should allow for a > > bootloader which is designed well enough to be more easily portable > > to different prom types so long as prom-libc has support). it will > > also allow the bootloader to be written much more like ordinary unix > > C programs, making them more portable (don't port the loader, port > > prom-libc). > > > > my goal is to eliminate the need for a different bootloader for > > every variation of hardware, i particularly hate how there is a > > dozen different loaders all with different user interfaces just for > > powerpc, much less other architectures. > > Unfortunately I think a PReP boot loader is largely orthogonal to an > OF based loader. Even PReP boxes that have OF don't support enough > services for yaboot (in any form) to work. Most PReP boxes don't have > OF or even allow any firmware calls from within the boot loader. With > PReP everything you need to bring up the O/S has to be held on the > boot partition and loaded into memory at boot time. then why do you have a of1275 interface in your loader? basically prep OF is more broken then apple's oldworld? now thats impressive... -- Ethan Benson http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/ ** Sent via the linuxppc-dev mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/