Re: [PATCH] x86 built-in command line

["H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>]

Followup to:  <20060612143748.GN24227@waste.org>
By author:    Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> On Mon, Jun 12, 2006 at 10:11:24AM +0200, Andi Kleen wrote:
> > Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com> writes:
> > 
> > > This patch allows building in a kernel command line on x86 as is
> > > possible on several other arches.
> > 
> > I'm surprised you didn't do the obvious "tiny" changes associated with
> > that. Look at the static array sizes of the command line buffers.
> 
> They're not entirely obvious. The saved command line buffer size is
> currently fixed so if we set a default that's larger, we'd like to
> have a compile failure if it's too large.
> 
> Next step here is to make the buffer size configurable, which will
> allow people to use command lines longer (or shorter!) than the boot
> protocol allows (256 bytes on x86).
> 

The boot protocol 256-byte limitation applies only to protocol version
2.01 or earlier.  After that, there is still a 256-byte *KERNEL*
limitation, but it is not a *PROTOCOL* limitation.  In other words,
the kernel can, and should be, upgraded; in fact, a gentleman by the
name of Alon Bar-Lev has submitted that patch several times already;
it wasn't accepted because of an unsubstantiated report that it broke
LILO, the veracity of which I think is in serious doubt.

	-hpa