Followup to: <m1iteth8j8.fsf@frodo.biederman.org>
By author: ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman)
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> writes:
>
> > > So of course I realize this wouldn't happen any time soon, but has any
> > > discussion taken place regarding enhancing the bootloader (grub? Steal
> > > FreeBSD's?) to load modular drivers very early, and possibly abstracting
> > > SMP/UP from the kernel proper? Wouldn't this be a better solution than
> > > initrd?
> >
> > All the discussion we have has been based on seriously enhancing and
> > expanding the use of the initrd/ramfs layer. Remember we can begin running
> > from ramfs without interrupts, pci bus scans or the like. The things it cant
> > do are - pick a kernel by processor type, pick SMP/non SMP.
> >
> > As it happens both of those are things that are deeply buried in the whole
> > compile choices and how we generate the code itself - so they do need to
> > be boot loader driven (or user driven)
> >
> > So the path for ACPI could indeed go
> >
> > load kernel
> > load initial ramfs
> > Discover we have ACPI
> > load acpi core
> > load acpi irq router
> > load acpi timers
> > [init hardware]
> > load ide disk
> > load ext3
> > mount /
>
> Sounds about right.
>
> If we really need to do weird things like pick a kernel by processor
> type, or pick SMP/non SMP. You can even do those from an initramfs
> with a linux booting linux kernel patch.
>
I discussed something like this before using "Genesis"; the idea
behind it was to make sure we have enough modules to access the
filesystem before the kernel starts (by using pre-initialization code
that can read filesystem using the firmware interface.) Unfortunately
life got busy on me, but I still think that it is probably the right
way to approach this.
-hpa
-- <hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private! "Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot." http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt <amsp@zytor.com> - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Sep 15 2001 - 21:00:15 EST