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

[<ebi...@ln...>]

Marty Connor <md...@et...> writes:

> Hello Everyone,
> 
> 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.
> 
> I'll start by listing some of the things that personally come to mind:
> 
And a few more off the top of my head and from the discussion.
        o Other architectures?
        o Update the Docmuentation
        o Multicast support in more drivers
        o Smaller ROM footprint 
          (Decompress and relocate and free memory < 1MB)
> 	o USB support
> 	o PCMCIA support
> 	o UNDI driver
> 	o PXE Support (FREEBSD_PXEEMU)
 
> Of the list, I think the last two interest me the most right now. We've talked
> about them for some time. The NILO project was working on a free PXE
> implementation, and there is some code there.

If the current code could be made to compile there would be a lot
more incentive to do the incremental steps needed to make it useable.
 
> The recent messages about getting PXELINUX to work with Etherboot sounded like
> fun. The UNDI driver discussion seemed interesting as well, though I need Peter
> or Vasil to explain how it works -- one more time :)
> 
> But what do you think?  If we went for PXE or UNDI, where are the big wins?

Improving PXEEMU to the point of usability without complicating the rest of the
code (as looks possible) is a risk mitigation thing.  If you already use PXE
you can switch to etherboot and all of your old setup can still work.

In addition a really good PXEEMU might be able to replace a vendors version
without qualms.

> 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.
> 
> 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, and I may be
> able to swing some limited funding for some of this.

One nice thing is to work on etherboot.zdsk or etherboot-pci.zdsk.  And
have it print out the driver you need to build to support your NIC.
I think we have enough information in etherboot to do that now.
 
> 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? ;)


Eric