Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 0/4] Add multiboot support (x86) v2

["François Revol" <revol@free.fr>]

> François Revol wrote:
> >> This patch implements support for Multiboot on x86 for -kernel.
> >> Multiboot is a "new" approach to get rid of different bootloaders,
> >> providing
> >> a unified interface for the kernel. It supports command line
> > > options
> >> and
> >> kernel modules.
> >>
> >> The two probably best known projects using multiboot are Xen and
> > > GNU
> >> Hurd.
> >>
> >
> > While Haiku doesn't use it (yet, but it will probably never be able
> > to
> > load without a BIOS except with the gzipped kernel trick used on a
> > floppy image for CD booting), it'd be nice to have the -append
> > option
> > args forwarded by the BIOS so one could still use -append
> > regardless
> > the boot method used to pass options to the OS, in which case I'd
> > add
> > support for them in the Haiku loader.
> >
>
> How can the BIOS pass such information?
>
> The BIOS boot specification doesn't have any notion of command line
> AFAIK.

Indeed, at least not the PC BIOS.
OF has the concept OTH... and QEMU does pass it through IIRC, and Haiku
should be able to get it AFAIR.

The idea would be to have it pass it anyway through a multiboot frame.
It would them behave just as if the OS was booted by grub and args had
been typed at boot time, as well as select the boot resolution.
It would be useful for the free live OS Zoo or
http://dev.haiku-os.org/browser/haiku/trunk/3rdparty/mmu_man/onlinedemo/haiku.php
for ex.

This would allow passing boot args to OSes to automate yet not having
to fake a vmlinuz to load them with -kernel.

François.