Date: Fri, 08 Jan 1999 00:00:45 -0800 From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> To: Julian Elischer <julian@whistle.com> Cc: Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com>, cvs-committers@FreeBSD.ORG, cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/i386/conf Makefile.i386 Message-ID: <199901080800.AAA00913@dingo.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 07 Jan 1999 14:04:15 PST." <36952F5F.2781E494@whistle.com>
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> > The Interjet upgrade process doesn't include code to upgrade the > bootblocks, so we (Whistle) are stuck forever needing to support > (in some way or other) the old bootblocks in the field. Funny, this is why the loader is still an a.out object, and will be at least buildable as such for the forseeable future (it doesn't actually depend on any of the a.out toolchain to achieve that). > Interjet owners may upgrade their Whistleware(TM) at any time or > they may decide to NOT upgrade it. We can't MANDATE that they > upgrade. We need to ensure that an Interjet sold 2 years > ago can upgrade in 2001 to the latest whistleware(TM), > however since the CODE installed in 1996 can't upgrade > the bootblocks we need to ensure that the old bootblocks > can find something in the new release to boot. It can't be an elf > kernel, so it will need to be an a.out 3rd stage loader that > can boot the new elf kernel that will be in whatever release > of WW we have in 2001. Obviously that old bootblock set > will be looking for a file called "kernel". Do you normally use 'nextboot'? Can it work in conjunction with a boot.config file? > Since we really try to keep WW as close as possible to FreeBSD, > I just wish that FreeBSD as a whole considered the ability to > run with old bootblocks more important, so that we didn't need > to diverge as much.. For crap's sake; we consider it *extremely* important, or I'd just have said "bugger it, everything will be ELF", and asked Robert to not bother with a.out in the new boot2 or in the BTX tools. If you were willing to _participate_ in resolving these issues, eg. by telling us what goes *wrong* if/when you try to boot your old bootblocks, we might be able to help you out. -- \\ Sometimes you're ahead, \\ Mike Smith \\ sometimes you're behind. \\ mike@smith.net.au \\ The race is long, and in the \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ end it's only with yourself. \\ msmith@cdrom.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe cvs-all" in the body of the message
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