Re: Contribution: a file loading module

[Pierre-Nicolas Clauss]

Hi,

2011/6/23 Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko <address@hidden>:
>> As an OS developer enthusiastic, I needed to load a file to memory at
>> a given specific address.
> While such a functionality would be a toy for loader developpers, it's
> completely useless for the end users. If the user has to know any single
> address or any single address figures in grub.cfg it's automatically a
> bad design. Also while it would be possible to write a loader in scripts
> using such kind of commands it's simply a wrong place for it. Loaders
> have to be written in C. Also people who really need such kind of
> functionality (devs) can quickly add such a kludge to the loader they
> are currently developping. As for the user the syntax has to be sth like
> loader_name <file> <args>
> This allows for a much higher flexibility, portability and future-proof.

Ok, I understand your point regarding end-users (which have absolutely
no need for this kind of module).

My use of it is not to write a loader in script: this module is my
loader in its own right.
For now, I'm using it to load my kernel at 1MB and use a chainloader
of mine to jump to it (and do some other things before).

But I agree it'd be better to wrap everything into a single loader command.

>> No command in grub 1.99 was fitting my needs (as my file as no
>> semantic known to grub: it's not a module, it's not an initrd, it's
>> not a multiboot kernel either), so I developed my own module.
>>
> What is it then? I'm willing to consider adding new loading as long as
> they are sane and make sense.

Basically, I wanted to have a small chainloader of mine to load my kernel.
IIRC, I cannot use both the 'kernel' and 'chainloader' commands
together, so I just skipped using a multiboot compliant kernel and
have the chainloader to jump at a given address (1MB).
This module is only intended to load the kernel at this expected
address, so I only rely on the 'chainloader' command.

But again, I'll try to make the whole thing a clean loader.
If I come up with such a loader, do you consider it could be eligible
for inclusion in grub ? Maybe maintaining the loaders for all the
kernel formats of hobbyist like me is not what you wish for...

Anyway, thanks for your lights,

-- 
pini