[syslinux] LVM support

[H. Peter Anvin]

Ferenc Wagner wrote:
> 
> Maybe a stupid question: if the boot LV is a single linear map,
> wouldn't booting from that be very easy?  At the end of the day that
> isn't different from it being a partition, after all.  The installer
> could recognize this and patch in the sector numbers all the same.  If
> the start of the filesystem was also patched in (I don't know this
> offhand), then the filesystem code would have no problem reading the rest.
> 

Very easy indeed.

> These two questions (LVM and Mini-OS) are related: I need to boot PV
> Xen domains from LVM.  The first part is possible with Grub, the
> second part is possible with Grub2, but I need both, so some hacking
> is unavoidable.  And I'm familiar with Syslinux only.  So I bring up
> this stuff here, as it may influence the bigger picture: the needed
> improvements in the build system and the code reorganization, to make
> it feasible at all (if it is received somewhat positively).
> 
> I'm willing to put real work into this (not much before autumn) but
> preferably in a way that actually leads somewhere.  So expert advice
> and insight is much needed.  And coordination with the SoC projects.
> Moving the filesystem code to C is one of them, right?  Will anybody
> work on this during the summer?

Yes, that's the plan.  Porting to Xen PV is just about as complicated 
(quite possibly *more* complicated) as porting to EFI, so that's part of 
a huge project.

	-hpa