[syslinux] Using Linux as bootloader

[Eric W. Biederman]

"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa at zytor.com> writes:

> On 10/30/2011 12:54 AM, Bernd Blaauw wrote:
>> Op 30-10-2011 7:38, Michael Chang schreef:
>>> Perhaps you will be interested in taking a look at this project.
>>> http://kboot.sourceforge.net/
>> 
>> I wouldn't mind if there was some tiny Linux-based initrd with
>> afterwards booting any OS that syslinux also can boot.
>
> That's a tall order; in particular getting the hardware back to the
> initial state.

Getting hardware back to it's power on reset state helps, but is not an
absolute requirement.  Disks and network devices that we boot off today
certainly aren't in their power on reset state when a traditional
bootloader like syslinux boots an OS.

More important and tricky is not confusing firmware, and allowing hand
off to other firmware based bootloaders.

I keep thinking it is theoretically promising is to have a port of linux
designed to run on top of your favorite firmware interface, that you can
call kexec from.  In principle at least that should allow for everything
any bootloader does today, controlled via a normal linux userspace api.

How much real value there is in that or if someone is truly ambitious
enough to implement it I don't know.

Eric