[syslinux] Path simple menu integrated progress indicator

[H. Peter Anvin]

On 04/23/2010 08:41 AM, Ayvaz, James wrote:
> This patch modifies the simple menu com32 program to include integrated load progress.  It also adds new options to the simple menu configuration
> 
> MENU LOADMSG -- allows the user to specify the text to display when loading
> MENU LOADMSGROW -- controls where the text is written
> 
> Example configuration:
> MENU LOADMSG Booting
> MENU LOADMSGROW 25
> 
> 
> It works with my setup, please let me know if you find any bugs or spot any problems.  Thank you.
> 

Overall good work, but there are some technical details of this that I
really don't like.

a) It is totally broken for anything which isn't a Linux kernel.  Say,
for example, that someone is trying to boot Xen via mboot.c32.  This
patch will make it try to load mboot.c32 as if it had been a Linux kernel!

b) It duplicates a lot of code already in linux.c32, but doesn't put it
in a library.  Instead it open-codes it in execute.c.

c) I'm not sure that it makes sense to have a different function for
loadfile with callback.  In fact, a set of sensible callbacks is also a
requirement for the future of gfxboot, and I'm thinking more that it
might make more sense to have an interface that looks more like:

	register_callback(CB_LOADFILE, mycallback);

	/* ... possible multiple intervening layers ... */
	loadfile();

	register_callback(CB_LOADFILE, NULL);

... or something like that.  One of the questions, I guess, is if there
is ever a need for *multiple* callbacks.  I suspect it would make life a
little simpler if there isn't.

	-hpa