[syslinux] syslinux: Please provide -m and -a options on Linux

[H. Peter Anvin]

On 09/08/2010 01:15 PM, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> On 09/03/2010 09:21 PM, Jeff Sadowski wrote:
>>
>> couldn't tis just be done with a couple system calls? using a simple
>> dd to copy the mbr.bin and parted to set the active partition.
>> Requiring other installed programs to do special tasks isn't asking
>> much. Most distros have parted and I don't know of a system without
>> dd.
>>
> 
> The hard part is figuring out what exactly to do -- consider things like
> loopback devices.  Keep in mind that doing the wrong thing behind the
> user's back could have extremely serious consequences (Grub's install
> scripts conveniently ignore this aspect.)
> 

Now, recent enhancements of sysfs has made a lot of this stuff a lot
easier than it used to be.  A lot of things actually *can* be determined
on current kernels, but it's important to know when you're about to get
it wrong!

	-hpa