MILO status
Hi,
I just finished what I wanted to do with MILO. The major improvements are:
- symlinks on EXT2 FS;
- memory size detection when booted from SRM;
- parameters block that specifies a command line for autoboot (useful when
neither ARC nor NVRAM is available);
- a separate tool to view and set the parameters block;
- lots of bugfixes.
The introduction of this "parameters block" means that it is now
possible to pre-program MILO (via its binary image) to execute a command
on startup. If MILO is booted from ARC or AlphaBIOS and is given
non-empty OSLOADOPTIONS, they take precedence. Otherwise the hardwired
command is executed.
For example, on an installation disk it may be useful to set this
command to something like `boot -t msdos fd0:vmlinux.gz'.
Several bugs have been fixed in the part that reads /etc/milo.conf and
presents a choice of bootable images a la LILO. It's still far from
perfect, but now hopefully it is at least useable. The command to boot
via /etc/milo.conf is `boot dev:' (without file name).
However, I haven't managed to make the Digital's BIOS emulation library
work. I wonder how those binaries from gatekeeper are built... Well,
the free x86emu code works fine for me with my S3, so I'm not concerned
too much.
For those who are interested, this stuff is now available under
ftp://genie.ucd.ie/pub/alpha/milo. There is a big patch for MILO, a
small patch for the kernel (on top of alpha-patches), a tool to play
with the parameters block and a binary MILO image for Avanti.
Cheers
Nikita
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