Re: Do you think it is possible to develop a tool, which can boot all OS(windows, Linux, Mac OS X)

[Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko]

On 03/01/2011 08:43 AM, Hui.Du wrote:
> Hi,
> I think the tool is very helpful that can boot all widely-used OS.
This is a primitive view of what bootloader is in the first place.
GRUB2 is already able to boot most of widely used OS. Windows is an
exception and it can be only chainloaded.
> 1. The tool is not a part of a specified OS, it is installed before
> any OS setup, after it is installed you can install OS(Windows, Linux,
> Mac OS X).
Installing anything without a working OS is a PITA. You can however
install GRUB2 from LiveCD. This way it acomplishes "installing without
having any OS on the disk"
> 2. Whenever a OS is re-installed, the co-exist OS do not have any side
> effect, the tool can boot all OS still.
Many OS installers, install their own bootloaders. Some of them can be
easily told not to. Others are very insisting and need a heavy
modifications not to. Nothing bootloader can do can prevent installer
from overwriting it
> 3. Whenever an OS can not be booted, the tool can recovery error.
"can not be booted" is a very broad term and is not an actual error
description. The range of possible problems is virtually limited only by
the OS size. If OS was securely wiped you can't "recover" it other than
by reinstalling or restoring from the backup. Both these methods are
universal in the sense that they work even if the original computer
falls into black hole. Both tasks are readily accomplished with
archiver/backup tools rsp OS installer.
> 4. The tool can find and config the OS boot list through checking the
> disk of a computer .
>
GRUB2 is able to do this (there is a script by Jordan Uggla) however the
OS list changes rarely so regenerating it at every boot is a waste of
time in most cases.
So in whole what you ask falls into categories of "already done", "done
by separate tools" and "can be configured to but is suboptimal and so
isn't a default". The only thing which isn't done is "universal OS
recovery" since it would require to do the things which are as
impossible as it gets (theoretically you can never really erase data
according to second thermodynamical principle, but the data is so
dispersed in environment that no modern observation method can recover it.)
> -- 
>
> *Best Regard 
> Du Hui*
>
Don't use HTML mail.

-- 
Regards
Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko

signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature