Re: RFC: specification for probing other OSes
On Wed, Mar 17, 2004 at 12:19:48AM -0800, Joshua Kwan wrote:
> This will eventually be README in tools/os-prober if it seems to be OK.
> Please comment!
>
> os-prober
> --------
>
> This is a small shell library that may be depended on by any bootloader
> installer package to detect other filesystems with operating systems on
> them.
>
> (What follows below is more of a design plan/proposal than anything.)
>
> All one has to do is Depend on os-prober, and then source
> /usr/share/os-prober/lib.sh to make the probe_oses function available.
> This function takes no arguments: it will scan all disks available on
> the system for other operating systems, and return a list of strings such
> as:
>
> "/dev/discs/.../part1:Windows NT/2000/XP:chain"
> ^------------------^ ^----------------^ ^---^
> partition OS name for boot May change: type of boot loader
> loader's pretty required. Usually there is only
> output a 'linux' style bootloader or
> a chain one for other partitions
> with their own boot sectors.
>
> Adding tests is easy. Just look in the directory for the architecture you
> are concerned with, and create a shell script in there with the format
> [0-9][0-9]name. The numbers determine in what order the script will be run.
> All of the scripts are passed a path in /dev to a single partition and should
> return one of the above strings if a match was encountered, and no further
> processing will occur for that partition.
>
> Bootloader installer packages will then have to process this output (fairly
> trivial) to create valid configuratoin entries for the bootloader. lib.sh
> will also include a function make_short that takes a 'long' OS name and
> makes a shorter one (for example, Windows 98 -> Win98) for bootloaders
> that can't afford to use spaces in boot names.
What about using this or an extension thereof in partman, to detect
which partition contain only random data and which contain bootable file
systems.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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