Re: [Etherboot-developers] World domination, anyone?

[Anselm M. H. <an...@ho...>]

Hello Marty,

Thursday, April 24, 2003, 8:26:39 PM, you wrote:

> I've been thinking about additions to Etherboot, and thinking about
> some of the recent discussions we've had, and thought I'd start a 
> thread to discuss what new directions people think are valuable. With 
> the recent architecture and  infrastructure improvements that Eric has 
> worked so hard on, we have a springboard for some exciting new 
> additions.

As you talk about it - something I had in mind the last days, as my PC
needs a reinstall anyway :-)

AFAIK there is some disk support there already. If one could tell
etherboot not to DHCP but have a standard filename argument (e.g.
pointing to a partition where a menu file is stored on), that again
could trampoline us to any partition boot - just a bootmanager then.
This is just an idea (so don't beat me please) - I think etherboot
could be altered as it accepts a default filename; if that starts with
dsk:// (or what was it? Have been away from it too long), no network
stuff is necessary. If that file's a menu, by returning a network
filename, network boot could be started at the second step, with a
predefined filename. This could be reasonable in cases where there is
a disk anyway and only very randomly network boot is needed - as I
wrote, only an idea. Probably this needed proper filesystem support,
so much to difficult in reality.

> But what do you think?  If we went for PXE or UNDI, where are the big
> wins? I'm always thinking about ways Etherboot could be used by more 
> people, and how we could become even more useful as a component 
> technology.

I'm not sure what PXE means exactly. I thought up to now, etherboot
can be loaded by PXE, unloads the PXE stack, loads its own drivers for
the card and does its stuff as usual - correct me if wrong. Would "PXE
support" mean instead of unloading the PXE stack using it - as
consequence, any PXE hardware would be supported?

> Btw, this is much more than of theoretical interest. I'd like to see us 
> implement something really cool for LinuxWorld Expo SF in August

Pity SF is just a third of the way round the earth from here and
RyanAir cheap flights are inner-European only :-(

> Ok, so go ahead. What do you think would be cool to do? Could you do 
> it? Do you know who could or would? And, most importantly, would it 
> bring us closer to WoRLd DomINatIoN? ;)

LiNuX rulez anyway. Who needs world domination? Quite a to great risk
someone doesn't like my face and sends his Marines for me ;-= The last
German to have those dreams coming partly true had birthday quite
yesterday, ya know? (Some neighbours like to celebrate that day, very
unlike me of course)

I'm in work up to the ears right now, but that's not to last more than
a week or three. I'd prefer honestly more than adding features myself
doing something in the docs - they seemed quite not to be uptodate at
some places. But - there was a mailing some days ago that someone
worked on them, wasn't it? What's the status over there?

Greetings,

Anselm