On 12-Nov-2008, at 12:42 PM, Manuel Bouyer wrote:
On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 05:27:30PM +0100, Hubert Feyrer wrote:On Wed, 12 Nov 2008, Antti Kantee wrote:I like the Linux naming. Before your post, I was planning to suggest/modules, but thought the name is too generic.OK, another idea... maybe that's a bit radical, but so what:Currently, /netbsd is "the stuff that is the kernel". To switch to a new kernel (for testing, or whatever), I have to replace /netbsd, e.g. by asymlink to a new/testing kernel, or by replacing the actual file.With a modularized kernel, "the stuff that is the kernel" is basically theactual kernel plus modules. So, I wonder if we should change /netbsd to a directory that has the actual kernel plus the modules that are associated with that specific (actual) kernel.To switch to a new "kernel", I'd have /netbsd either as simple directory or as symlink to something that has my own naming scheme, just as now. The choice of the naming scheme would be left to the user, and we couldassume to be the "kernel"(-stuff) still be in /netbsd.
I kinda like this (not so) "radical" idea.
And what if you load 'netbsd.old' or 'netbsd.test' from the boot loader ?
As he said, "if we change /netbsd to a directory"... :-)The final-stage boot loader need only check if the path given is a directory or a normal file -- if it's not a directory then everything works as before.
Otherwise the boot loader could append "/kernel" or something similar to the path given and then load that as the first "module".
My only concern is that non-modular kernel loading continues to work as it always has! :-)
--
Greg A. Woods; Planix, Inc.
<woods%planix.ca@localhost>
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