[syslinux] Thoughts About Direction?

[Shao Miller]

Some thoughts and questions for Syslinux:

1. It’d be great to see the multi-disk (or multiple FS) support completed. ☺

2. It’d be interesting if Syslinux could support a CPIO FS, which has been discussed before.  This would make sense for a new Syslinux "kernel variant."

3. With Matt Fleming’s ELF support, we could allow the FS drivers to compile into "stand-alone" ELF modules?

4. Syslinux, having multiple FS support, could have a CPIO archive embedded for all variants, similar to the Linux kernel.  We could shift from choosing what to link in, to choosing what to CPIO in.  (I'm thinking of optional filesystem drivers not required for the variant's "boot" filesystem.)  Is this sensible, or does the more efficient linking seem better?  Or both?  (Maybe both capabilities are best; link in the CPIO _and_ "boot" FS driver, but allow a user to CPIO in other stuff.)

  - As well as continuing to be able to use a CPIO archive passed by another boot-loader, for the kernel variant, as established in #2.

Do any of these ideas have merit?  Do they fit with the vision of the future of Syslinux or not really?

- Shao Miller