Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2012 12:52:55 -0700 From: Garrett Cooper <yanegomi@gmail.com> To: Devin Teske <dteske@freebsd.org> Cc: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Dag-Erling_Sm=F8rgrav?= <des@des.no>, freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: New Boot Loader Menu Message-ID: <A5FE9B8C-742B-45E0-85EB-1092A7D58D04@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <D61F7ED5-76C3-453D-878A-F0C678198C87@fisglobal.com> References: <0655B56F-AD43-402B-872C-568378E650F9@fisglobal.com> <86k3v21qsx.fsf@ds4.des.no> <3EB58454-7820-43C4-911E-7DEF2D02C880@fisglobal.com> <86fw5q15f9.fsf@ds4.des.no> <D61F7ED5-76C3-453D-878A-F0C678198C87@fisglobal.com>
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On Oct 7, 2012, at 12:03 PM, Devin Teske wrote: > On Oct 7, 2012, at 11:51 AM, Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote: > >> Devin Teske <devin.teske@fisglobal.com> writes: >>> Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des@des.no> writes: >>>> What problem are you trying to solve, exactly? >>> Many in-fact: >>> [list of things that bear no relation whatsoever to what was actually >>> in the email I replied to] >> > > I disagree with your slight that those "things … bear no relation whatsoever to what was actually in the e-mail [you] replied to". > > It only *seem* as those are unrelated. I assure you, they are _very_ related (and it's very much my mistake for not making it clear in my initial e-mail). I must apologize for this lack of clarity (I try to rectify it below). > >> Then maybe you should have focused on that in your original email. >> > > Yes, perhaps. > > Perhaps it would have been better to explain: > > Hey… > > + iX and I are working on enhancing the boot loader menu to include a new submenu for selecting a Boot Environment (BE). I'm providing the menu infrastructure, iX is providing the C code to populate that menu. Sounds like GRUB/Plymouth's model... sorta. > + We can't add this new menu item without pigeon-holing ourselves into a position where no more menuitems can be added. Understood. ... > + What do you think of how it looks? Comments: - Graphics look ok for a text boot loader. Not too radically different from the original rewrite, which is good. - Look at other OSes and devices for inspiration for their boot menus: OSX and Windows might not be a good template because the menu is obscured from the end user (or maybe not?), but there might be some Android/Linux platforms out there that can serve as inspiration for things which should be put in a menu. It would probably be best just to come up with a general template based on common use cases. Once you have an idea of the breadth of common uses in a boot menu, I would design from there trying to determine what dimensions are that you need to make things work (I have X items, Y levels deep to work with -- 2 is good, and I can categorize them in this manner, which means I need this many groups max in order to accommodate everything). - Have you considered high resolution screens/fonts; there are some already in FreeBSD hooked into syscons, but that's available later on at boot? I mention this because there's a lot of wasted real estate on my 30" or 24" LCDs when I boot up FreeBSD. I'd like to see sketches or a general idea of what you have in mind before investing too much time in a direction that doesn't bear a lot of fruit. I'm sure others here agree. Thanks! -Garrett
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