Re: [Etherboot-developers] Re: [Etherboot-users] Request for Comments

[<ke...@us...>]

>Is this not already possible via judicious use of the extensions-path
>option and the ANSI escape sequence "<esc>['filename'#"?  Without filling
>up the DHCP packet, you can specify a menu file via the extensions-path
>option (or etherboot.extensions-path, if you've already upgraded to
>encapsulated options!) and the menu file can contain escape sequences to
>load icons, backdrops etc from further files.

But this still imposes the need for Etherboot to interpret the graphics,
which means bloat and also makes it harder to fix bugs and upgrade
because Etherboot code is often written in silicon. Also there's no
accounting for taste. One person will be happy with ANSI escapes,
another wants PCX graphics, yet another wants mouse interaction. All
those customisations can be done on the auxilliary program, not the core
of Etherboot. Menus could even be conditional on client info as returned
by DHCP. I would like to see all the menu stuff in Etherboot move into
an auxilliary program and Etherboot be just a loader.

>Very true.  On my system, the only message that is actually visible is
>"Boot from Network or Local?": all the others vanish off the screen before
>you could even read enough to determine the language they were written in!
>
>Maybe it would be worth localizing this single message since it does
>prompt for user interaction?

There are basic defines for these at the top of etherboot.h. Possibly
they should be enclosed in #ifdefs or patch sets developed.