Re: new bi_rec interface (was Re: [Ppcboot-users] Re: EV-64260 booting)

On Mon, Mar 18, 2002 at 03:23:29PM -0600, Peter Bergner wrote:

What happened to the idea (paulus' idea?) of creating some wrapper
code (eg, zimage) that would build the bootinfo and pass it into
the kernel, so yaboot doesn't need to do much other than pass in
boot params?  This would force us to only boot zimages though
(or whatever wrapper code we create).

from a logistical point of view this really seems to be the best
approach.  keeping all the details in a kernel wrapper of sorts gives
the kernel maintainers much more freedom to make changes in the
future, whereas if its kept in yaboot (rather $bootloader) you have to
deal with backword compatibility and endless luser error due to using
the wrong bootloader versions with wrong kernels.

of course if someone doesn't want to use the wrapper they can just use
the vmlinux and write thier own bootloader to handle all this stuff
and take on the effort of ensuring its up to date with what the kernel
wants.

--
Ethan Benson
http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/

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Ethan Benson wrote:

from a logistical point of view this really seems to be the best
approach.

This has been the normal mode of operation for the embedded boards.
Many of us think it is the logical approach, and quite a while ago
some of us started talking about how we can combine these ideas
in an effort to remove a reasonable amount of board specific code
from the kernel setup functions.

There were some challenges while trying to move from one method
to another, with the transition being the 2.4 source tree.  For
2.5 we just "declared" this will be the way.

of course if someone doesn't want to use the wrapper they can just use
the vmlinux and write thier own bootloader to handle all this stuff
and take on the effort of ensuring its up to date with what the kernel
wants.

There are people that want to do this and see value in doing so.  It
does present a challenge as I was one that broke ppcboot when I changed
the interface between the bootloader and the kernel (thinking everyone
used the bootloader wrapper on embedded boards :-).


	-- Dan


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