[syslinux] Some thoughts of Syslinux 4 architecture

[Roger Binns]

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Geert Stappers wrote:
> Euh, that is where the COM32 modules come in.
> See the com32 directory for more information.

We are talking slightly at cross purposes here.  I am talking about what
problems syslinux should solve, and you are talking about how it should
be solved.  To be perfectly honest I couldn't care less how it is solved
as long as it works :-)  If back end modules have to be written in ADA
and hand assembled that doesn't matter!  It is certainly the case today
that you can't have a zero length config file.

> From my point of view is that a request to duplicate Operating System
> tasks into the bootloader.
> I'm happy with bootloader that is just a bootloader.

The user goal is that they have a bunch of operating systems that could
be run, and after turning on the machine one of them is run.  Again it
doesn't matter how it is done behind the scenes, but babysitting the
software is not high of my list of priorities.

I think you also missed my point :-)  Currently much Unix software is
all about mechanism and not about policy.  syslinux is just like this -
you can put kernels, disk images etc all over the place.  What I am
advocating is a policy.  If you put kernels, disk images etc in a
certain place, named a certain way then syslinux will automatically pick
them up.  For the people who want fine control, they can always provide
a config file that overrides or augments to exactly what they want.

I highly recommend reading this article:

http://www.chi-sa.org.za/articles/goal-directed.htm

Roger
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