[Freedos-devel] kernel menu choice from Syslinux

[Bernd B. <bb...@ho...>]

For a Bootable CD I'd like to offer the user the choice between a few 
memory/driver options (no drivers, or XMS, or XMS/EMS/UMB)
Despite commandline loadable memory drivers like JEMMEX LOAD or DEVLOAD 
HIMEMX.EXE, the optimal result is gained by loading in (FD)CONFIG.SYS.
That would imply using the FreeDOS kernel menuing system, which together 
with a Syslinux/Isolinux menu system (or boot choice) would be a double 
choice, which I'd like to avoid completely.

For commandline stuff it's possible to add options in the Syslinux menu, 
later on retrieve them through official tools (GETARGS, MDISKCHK) or 
some of Eric Auer's tools.
For config.sys loaded drivers this is not possible. If wanting to stick 
to a single menu yet offer various memory drivers, it means duplicating 
most of a bootdisk image's contents where all files are equal except for 
their CONFIG.SYS contents.

# no drivers
label 0
kernel memdisk
append initrd=NODRIVER.IMG

# only HIMEM by DEVICE=HIMEMX.EXE, DOS=HIGH
label 1
kernel memdisk
append initrd=HIMEM.IMG

# XMS+EMS+UMB
label 1
kernel memdisk
append initrd=JEMMEX.IMG

That means wasting a lot (well, 720KB I guess) of diskspace.
My preference would be something like:

append initrd=FDBOOT.IMG fdconfig=config1.sys
append initrd=FDBOOT.IMG fdconfig=config2.sys
append initrd=FDBOOT.IMG fdconfig=config3.sys

or alternatively, KERNEL checking MEMDISK presence and a variable named 
CONFIG with a valid value from the default FreeDOS kernel menu system.

# run all config.sys lines from multimenu with "0" in it, if none, run 
config.sys normally.
append initrd=FDBOOT.IMG config=0
append initrd=FDBOOT.IMG config=1
append initrd=FDBOOT.IMG config=2

Basicly, if a valid CONFIG value has been found, use that with a default 
of 0 seconds, thus disabling the user input choice. 2-stage menu is a 
waste :)

Is this feasable or should I stick to the multiple disk image idea?