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

[Arjan van de Ven]

On Fri, 2004-12-31 at 22:24 +0800, Coywolf Qi Hunt wrote:
> On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 11:12:34 +0100, Arjan van de Ven
> <arjan at infradead.org> wrote:
> > 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).
> > 
> 
> This boot loader ID doesn't help much for system upgrade. The running
> kernel may boot from removable drive.

but then it says syslinux or so... 
means that the lilo-or-grub question still needs the heuristics, it's
just that in the normal case, the bootloader type can help make the
heuristics reliable.