[ros-kernel] Thoughts about loadros

[Eric K. <ek...@rz...>]

Hi!

As we all know, the boot process of ReactOS is not as good as it should be.
Although Brian Palmer has done a very good job with writing FreeLoader, I
think we really need to fill in some very really huge gaps.

The main problem is that no boot loader, neither FreeLoader nor loadros, is
able to load the system hive, load drivers accroding to the system hive,
analyze the system-configuration and pass the drivers, the system hive and
the hardware hive to ntoskrnl.

One of the major showstoppers is djgpp. It generates 32-bit protected mode
code that uses a dos extender to run on 16-bit real mode dos. Unfortunately
we need a 16-bit real mode compiler to build the boot loader. Within the
last two or three weeks I had a look at some freely available compilers and
I found 'Digital Mars', the former Zortech/Symantec compiler
(http://www.digitalmars.com). Today I was looking for something called 'real
flat mode' or 'unreal mode', a nice feature of x86 processors that allows
4GB(!) data segments real mode. I found a little 'library' (flat100.zip)
that provides easy access to such a large data segment. This library is
available with source included (precompiled with nasm) and seems to be
usable with the Digital Mars compiler.

IMHO, it is a good idea to use the Digital Mars compiler and flat100 to add
the registry hive code to loadros. In a second step we can change loadros
from a dos program to a stand-alone boot-loader. Of course we can, use some
FreeLoader code too. For example the .ini-file code or the tui code.

What do you think??

- Eric Kohl


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