[openbeos] Re: Stage 1 Bootloader

  • From: "Axel Dörfler" <axeld@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 02:57:48 +0100 CET

Fred K Ollinger <follinge@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Which means that you'd have to copy the files needed to a special
> > partition that GRUB can access, too, to boot with it, if you don't 
> > want
> > to use our stage 2 boot loader. Anyway, being multiboot compliant 
> > (even
> > if we are) won't mean that you can boot with GRUB the same way as 
> > with
> > the native loader. BFS is one reason, the driver settings are 
> > another,
> > and there might even be more.
> Are you saying that we need to have the mbr dedicated to beos, only,
> bootloader?

No :-)

> Grub is your friend.

I know, you will be able to use GRUB. What I tried to say was:
Even if we will be multiboot compliant, that won't mean that you could 
use GRUB without our second stage loader (one reason for the multiboot 
specification is to be able to directly load and execute the kernel).
We have a specific driver settings format that won't be changed, and 
the boot loader must support this if it intends to correctly support 
the boot process - if not, you will have to have your config twice, 
once for the loader, and once for the kernel.
If it want to be able to boot the kernel from a BFS disk, it has to 
support BFS, or you will need to put the kernel and some modules/
drivers to another partition with an FS supported by the loader.
The boot loader should calculate a check sum for the boot device, so 
that the kernel can find it later, because the kernel won't go into 
virtual86 mode anymore - so it could be that you would need to specify 
the boot device if you are using another boot loader.
Etc.

We are not using GRUB as our main loader, but presenting our own, 
possibly multiboot compliant OS loader. The problems given above should 
be a hint as to why we are doing so. It's not because we want to have 
more work. Furthermore, we aren't bound to a specific GPLd boot loader.
Our boot loader will be MIT licensed, and most probably multiboot 
compliant - not as nice as GRUB in many regards, but it will perfectly 
fit to our needs, and will be very tiny compared to GRUB, and very 
flexible as well (i.e. you don't need a config file to boot OpenBeOS, 
you don't need to alter the config if you are moving the partition 
around, to another harddisk, to another system, whatever).

We are also not using the Linux kernel, we are also not using X, etc. -
 and we have reasons to do so.

Adios...
   Axel.



Other related posts: