Thread: Proposal/idea for a "new" bootmenu
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fanoush is offline fanoush
2008-08-18 , 09:05
Posts: 2,152 | Thanked: 1,490 times | Joined on Jan 2006 @ Czech Republic
#9
Originally Posted by Stskeeps View Post
It's set in set_default_root_params in linuxrc - Basically the use of rootfs as the place for boot menu is "best effort" -it's either that or store it in initfs and flash every time on <Diablo systems. It's true that there's some issues if some other rootfs is in internal flash - but these can just as well contain a /etc/bootmenu.d that supporting tools may put stuff into. I would -much rather- prefer to store in initfs (without reflashing) or CAL (too little space), but this doesn't seem easily achievable on non-Diablo systems.
I am worried that such "best effort" is not good enough. It adds complexity and fragility without solving the problem completely. Merging multiple items is great idea but we should keep it in initfs or elsewhere except any random (where random is /dev/mtdblock4 for you) rootfs. Well at least this should be configurable so people can set it to first FAT partition on internal card or something like that. But this adds problems with unknown filesystem, additional complexity of configuring this (by users) etc.

Originally Posted by Stskeeps View Post
Well, there's always the possibility to have a mmc partition with boot information and such but that just complicates matters..
exactly :-)

So basically I'd concentrate on efforts to put it to initfs or maybe end of kernel partition (and change kernel flasher to not to wipe whole partition). Diablo uses own kernel flasher (not sure if it wipes whole partition or not) but with Diablo writing to initfs is easier.

But still I see reflashing modified initfs with new menu addition as the easiest method if initfs cannot be modified directly.

Originally Posted by Stskeeps View Post
Well, the idea of linuxrc is that it's a script that runs inside the initfs, that performs the pivot_root and all the other needed stuff - whereas /sbin/init is run inside the pivot root / on the rootfs.
Oh, I see the difference now. So basically you finetune that linuxrc yourself for specific system and its purpose is to replace nokia /linuxrc and do the pivot_root and tablet specific magic yourself. Got it. That sounds useful and solves the issue of what exactly should be initialized for specific system by not trying to solve it at all :-)
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