View Single Post
Posts: 362 | Thanked: 426 times | Joined on Nov 2010 @ Italy, Lombardia
#478
Originally Posted by RobbieThe1st View Post
Let me put in just a couple of notes here:
1. While I appreciate people thinking about using Multiboot and working to make it compatible, Multiboot is somewhat depreciated, and shouldn't be used - It overwrites the kernel partition each time you switch your boot OS!
Remember that the kernel partition is on a raw flash device with -no- block-leveling; if one block goes bad, your whole N900 could die.
uBoot is the replacement, and it simply chainloads a new kernel off whatever partition you want, resulting in -no- extra writes to the kernel partition. It's a far better system and anyone thinking about dual-boot should be using it.
(Note that BootMenu should be compatible with uBoot, though building a BackupMenu module for uBoot(and a boot-menu) would be nice).
I hate kernel reflash too, but learning from multiboot's sources I have found out that it can operate in other ways too
For example multiboot contains code for using kexec (but this code isn't active) and the new script functionallity can be used to change u-boot default script (i.e. multiboot change u-boot script and then reboot, at reboot u-boot load the correct os, all without a single reflash)

I am working on initrd for Backupmenu and Nitdroid, but unfortunately I have low time to dedicate and so I have slow progress for now

With an initrd you can boot with
  • u-boot
  • Kernel + initrd loaded (not flashed) by flasher-3.5
  • kexec (probably not sure)

Last edited by Fabry; 2011-01-04 at 14:08.
 

The Following User Says Thank You to Fabry For This Useful Post: