[syslinux] Re: [PATCH] /proc/sys/kernel/bootloader_type

[Arjan van de Ven]

On Fri, 2004-12-31 at 01:34 -0800, Andrew Morton wrote:
> "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa at zytor.com> wrote:
> >
> > This patch exports to userspace the boot loader ID which has been 
> >  exported by (b)zImage boot loaders since boot protocol version 2.
> 
> Why does userspace need to know this?

so that update tools that update kernels from vendors know which
bootloader file they need to update; eg right now those tools do all
kinds of hairy heuristics to find out if it's grub or lilo or .. that
installed the kernel. Those heuristics are fragile in the presence of
more than one bootloader (which isn't that uncommon in OS upgrade
situations).