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SubjectLoading Linux from Linux - opinions
Whats the status of the "Loading Linux from Linux" patch?  What is the
chance of a patch like this making it into a stable release?

I've downloaded the LOBOS stuff and I'm gonna try doing some
experimentation with that this weekend. Its occured to me that a single
linux application running under a stripped down kernel (which could even
reside on a DOS drive to get around 1024 cyl limitations), could provide
a number of useful features if you can grab a kernel from any drive and
boot it. Guessing you can boot a wintendo parition in a similar fashion.
As long as LILO boots a stripped down, quick loading kernel, that kernel
can be used to do all sorts of stuff including boot your main kernel,
give a boot menu, or even some of the features of an OpenPROM system.

The idea would be to have something like this installed for you by your
fav distribution (if you wanted it) as part of the install process since
the installer will know more about how you set up your partitions and
could provide a ready-to-eat implementation.

Way I see it :
1 - you get a free emergency repair kernel, could even have a copy of
linload or something you can get to from windblows to boot the stripped
down kernel which in turn gives you your boot menu so you can get to
everything and fix it. Or shell out to a command line with vi ...
2 - full EIDE (or SCSI) driver, so you don't have a 1024 cyl limit as
long as you keep the stripped down kernel on your first partition (like
on a windows drive) loaded by LILO. Not the most secure, but if someone
can hit the reset button and stick in a boot floppy, nothing is secure
anyway).
3 - those with fixed frequency monitors can have the stripped kernel set
the video mode (after booting - you miss the original boot, but it should
be fast enough as you won't have any start-up or devices, just kernel
load followed by fbset) so that when the important full-kernel boots we
can see it happen without a serial terminal, without cluttering up
modedb.c with every fixed frequency monitor just to get it to boot (added
my NeXT monitor, but for anyone else its just clutter ... although being
able to pass the full set of monitor timings to the kernel in the video=
line would be nice too, anyone else think that could be useful for us
people struggling with fixed frequency monitors?)
4 - a command line could load modules into the kernel to configure
ethernet for network boots - was actually going to set up some sort of
scripting language maybe.
5 - Configure and save boot options in a single interface, like a SUN
prom, change defaults without re-running LILO
6 - Provide fancy GUI boot menus using microwindows/nanogui which build
on FBcon so its really small and lightweight, we're talking K instead of
Megs for a full GUI.
7 - if you wanna really avoid filesystem clutter, like if ur putting
this on your windows filesystem or on a seperate /boot partition (how I
get around 1024 now), you can make a disk image of a filesystem, like
cramfs, and mount it through the loopback device to reduce the number of
files and executables - might be good for a set of "emergency repair"
tools.

I have some other ideas too, but I wanna play with it a bit and see how
it goes. But wanted to get a lil feedback.

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