Re: [PATCH] /proc/sys/kernel/bootloader_type

From: Coywolf Qi Hunt
Date: Fri Dec 31 2004 - 09:25:26 EST


On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 11:12:34 +0100, Arjan van de Ven
<arjan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Fri, 2004-12-31 at 01:34 -0800, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >
> > > This patch exports to userspace the boot loader ID which has been
> > > exported by (b)zImage boot loaders since boot protocol version 2.
> >
> > Why does userspace need to know this?
>
> so that update tools that update kernels from vendors know which
> bootloader file they need to update; eg right now those tools do all
> kinds of hairy heuristics to find out if it's grub or lilo or .. that
> installed the kernel. Those heuristics are fragile in the presence of
> more than one bootloader (which isn't that uncommon in OS upgrade
> situations).
>

This boot loader ID doesn't help much for system upgrade. The running
kernel may boot from removable drive.


--
Coywolf Qi Hunt
Homepage http://sosdg.org/~coywolf/
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