Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 6 May 1999 15:34:52 -0400 (EDT) | From | Alexander Viro <> | Subject | Re: Oops assist... [New idea] |
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On Fri, 7 May 1999, Manfred Spraul wrote:
> Philip Gladstone wrote: > > I agree that it would be nice. If you have a modern motherboard, > > then you can probably hide 64kb (or more) in the memory hidden > > by the VGA card. (check your /proc/pci for one of 82437, 82441, 82443) > > But that would not be very compatible. > > I have a new idea: > what about supporting 'fast reboot', and then we can use this 'fast > reboot' > feature for the oops-reboot. > > 1) what's 'fast reboot'. > Windows 95 has the feature that you can reboot Windows without > restarting > the computer, i.e. not BIOS self test. Much faster. > It's implemented by an old DOS program that sits below Windows: > (WIN.COM) > if Windows exits with return code 0x42, then it will restart windows > instead of shutting down the computer. > > 2) How could we implement it? > We could add a new proc entry /proc/lilo_sect. > You write the current boot sector to this sector during startup. > (lilo must update the proc copy).
In other words, goodbye non-standard bootloaders (e.g. LOADLIN).
> If we want to perform a fast reset, then we switch back to real mode, > move that sector to 0x7c00 (??) and we > execute the lilo sector. > --> kernel reloaded, but memory not cleared.
And devices not reinitialized.
> setup_arch() could check if we have an oops, and move it into dmesg. > > Advantages: > * fast reboot, a new feature > * we could store oops reports during startup: start with the buggy > kernel, > oops, ... dirty reboot > lilo, switch to the stable kernel --> oops in the system log. ... if fs will survive, that is. Besides, since you are in for full fsck you may forget about fast reboot.
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