Messages in this thread | | | From | Rick Hohensee <> | Subject | Re: PATCH to support dotted base directory names | Date | Fri, 9 Jul 1999 18:35:01 -0400 (EDT) |
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> > On Fri, Jul 09, 1999 at 04:32:48PM -0400, Rick Hohensee wrote: > > Install versions of the kernel I use may well not have the > > > > > + panic("No init or shell found. Try passing > > init=</path/to/command>" > > > > + " to the kernel with your bootloader."); > > > > > > This is *much* simpler than using a bootloader. Are bootloaders > > multi-lingual? > > if your users need a multilingual distribution, how do you expect them to > understand this error message?
I'll worry about that when there's an error message available that makes sense to, is ANY use to, a first-time installer in English.
> > > I don't think you're opposed to the code, > > though. Surely not. I think you're opposed to the choice. > > but I am opposed to the code. I'm opposed to doing anything in the > kernel that can be done equally well in userspace. I think Linux is too > big, and I welcome anything which makes it smaller, cleaner or more > straightforward.
Good rule. You have the makings of a pretty fair Forth programmer. Absolutism is bad, however. A bootloader is not user-space. User-space doesn't exist at boot-time. If you're not opposed to the choice, then making the choice dependant on a bootloader loses, regardless of what you consider "the kernel". Given that the choice is good, this is the simplest approach, and the cost within THE kernel is trivial.
This isn't sched.c we're talking about. This is the point at which the kernel spawns user-space. We should be joyous! Enthused! Positive! Sloppy! Or at least not absolutist. Look at the unholy mess the SysV init binary is. Expedience rules at boot time.
No, you're right. Let's stick it in the bootloader. Along with a Forth compiler, realtime scheduling, Plan9 device-space under #, Open Firmware driver translation, X....
Rick Hohensee
(note to the reader, I know Wilcox from elsewhere and we have already established that he is a cat and I am a dog. i.e. I'm not quite this snide ALL the time. I love the dude. Really.)
> > [snip] > -- > Matthew Wilcox <willy@bofh.ai> > "Windows and MacOS are products, contrived by engineers in the service of > specific companies. Unix, by contrast, is not so much a product as it is a > painstakingly compiled oral history of the hacker subculture." - N Stephenson >
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