Re: Can grub be made into a minikernel?
AFAIK Netwinder doesn't chainload, except maybe for
the nvram. There is 1MB nvram where a minikernel
usually is placed, it seems to be like a binary disk image,
but I am not sure.
Possibly I could simulate a floppy using the loop device,
somehow place grub on it, dd it into a file, and load
that into the nvram, but that would be pretty risky,
as I could forever lose my only boot loader. The
Netwinder doesn't boot like a normal PC as it was
designed exclusively to run Linux.
Like I said, Netwinder nettrom can boot a kernel file
from an ext2 partition, so if the grub shell could be
linked with OSKit's linuxboot compatibility, it would
effectively be like chainloading it ( I think ), and that
way I don't have to risk screwing up my nvram. Besides
the nettrom/BIOS is a very nice piece of work and
is worth keeping if at all possible.
Netwinder isn't capable of booting Hurd because it
has no way to load the extra modules after the kernel,
hence the need for a grub minikernel. However, the
machine itself is very similar to a DEC Shark, which
has some OSKit support.
Port Grub to arm... yep that's a good start. I'll try it
and see how rough it looks.
- Doug
Niels Möller wrote:
"B. Douglas Hilton" <bdhilton@charter.net> writes:
Except, Netwinder's nettrom seems only able
to boot a linux kernel. No multiboot capability
that I am aware of.
I don't really know all this boot-time magic, but my guess is that you
need to
1. Port Grub to ARM. Adding support for multiple platforms and
multiple cpu:s to Grub will be an interesting and useful thing to
do, but perhaps non-trivial. Personally, I'd like to see a Grub
port to sparc, reusing some of the SILO assembler code, but I don't
have the time (and perhaps not the skill either) for that.
2. Either replace the netwinders bootloader with the new ARM Grub, or
figure out some way to "chain load" Grub from the netwinder's own
bootloader. The later is *not* making Grub a "mini-kernel", it just
means fitting grub into a different booting sequence, in the same
place as the linux-kernel in the ordinary netwinder boot sequence.
Regards,
/Niels
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