From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Fri, 31 Aug 2001 18:41:11 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Fri, 31 Aug 2001 18:41:01 -0400 Received: from h24-64-71-161.cg.shawcable.net ([24.64.71.161]:39420 "EHLO webber.adilger.int") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Fri, 31 Aug 2001 18:40:44 -0400 From: Andreas Dilger Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 16:40:28 -0600 To: "Grover, Andrew" Cc: "'Russell Coker'" , "Acpi-linux (E-mail)" , "'linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org'" Subject: Re: lilo vs other OS bootloaders was: FreeBSD makes progress Message-ID: <20010831164028.I541@turbolinux.com> Mail-Followup-To: "Grover, Andrew" , 'Russell Coker' , "Acpi-linux (E-mail)" , "'linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org'" In-Reply-To: <4148FEAAD879D311AC5700A0C969E89006CDE0DB@orsmsx35.jf.intel.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4148FEAAD879D311AC5700A0C969E89006CDE0DB@orsmsx35.jf.intel.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.20i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Aug 31, 2001 14:49 -0700, Grover, Andrew wrote: > Just for discussion's sake, I would like to point out that other OSs do have > loaders that can load boot drivers, and they can use this to increase the > modularity of their kernel. FreeBSD's and Win2k's bootloaders are examples. > Win2K even abstracts all SMP/UP code into a module (the HAL) and loads this > at boot, thus using the same kernel for both. Just FYI, this is just around the corner. Al Viro has made it mandatory (I believe) to have a very simple initramfs, for doing things like mounting the root filesystem and setting up other services which are now done in the kernel at boot time. This initramfs (very similar to initrd) is at the end of the kernel image, so it can't get lost and doesn't require sending a separate file (i.e. for network booting, etc). > possibly abstracting SMP/UP from the kernel proper? Will never happen, as there would probably be overhead for both UP and SMP to do this. If you want something like this (for ease of admin or so), you can generally run the SMP kernel on UP systems and take the performance hit, but not everyone will do that. Cheers, Andreas -- Andreas Dilger \ "If a man ate a pound of pasta and a pound of antipasto, \ would they cancel out, leaving him still hungry?" http://www-mddsp.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/adilger/ -- Dogbert