If I may add my two cents…
In article <aeku4r$3ar$1@inn.qnx.com>, Jens H Jorgensen wrote:
It is true that it is more convenient for a user that knows what he/she is
doing to be able to choose root partition at boot time. But the problem is
that you cannot change the default root partition currently, so if a
non-expect user has to use a certain root partition then that user has to
press the correct key, which can be a big challenge for some users.
The advantage with doing it through fdisk is that an expert user can setup
which partition to use as root partition, and then the novice user is not
presented with the choice after that.
The current mode is basically an expert mode for the boot strap code, so if
there was a “use active partition” version of the boot strap code that would
be very nice.
Thanks
Jens
“Kris Warkentin” <> kewarken@qnx.com> > wrote in message
news:aekqsk$6ru$> 1@nntp.qnx.com> …
What about the situation when there are multiple OS partitions? I’m just
thinking that the timeout for the choice is quite short and it’s
considerably more inconvenient to have to use fdisk to set the active
partition every time than to just pick one or let it time out. There’s
nothing to stop you from changing the active partition to have a different
default. I guess I’m not really seeing why having the choice is a bad
thing. Perhaps an ‘expert mode’ or something to get this behaviour?
Kris
There is a loader out there, that does this very well.
It presents a boot prompt and then waits a configurable time-out, which
can be anything from none, to forever. If a particular key is pressed, it
presents a choice from all of the bootable configurations it knows about.
A recent version, provides an option whereby the last configuration chosen,
remains the default, “locked” if you will, until some other choice is
deliberately made. It’s configurable as to whether this new choice auto
magicly becomes the new default, or not. It does not require a bootable
flag on any partition ( none of mine are set active ), but can boot anything
it knows about ( compiled in at install time ). It lives in the MBR.
Most of its functions are not unlike the WinNT first stage loader, but are
more configurable, therefore more flexible. It doesn’t depend on any
.diskroot file existing in the “root” partition, nor a pkg directory, but
simply loads a chosen bootimage file, which then takes care of all the rest.
I find this particularly advantageous, as it permits easily rebooting from
one system to another, without being forced to user-interact with the
system, though boot time choices are possible if gotten before the configured
time outs, or simply powering-up and walking away, returning when the
system has finished loading, and running all of it’s initialization scripts.
Presently, this loader works for me very well, with the exception of QNXRTP.
QNXRTP requires me to either rename the .diskroot files in backups so that
they won’t present a choice, or to interact with the QNX loader every time.
This then requires me to rename the .diskroot files in order TO boot a
backup, even when booting from CD.
Something presenting both ways, choice of systems for the developer, or
not for the general purpose user, would certainly be desirable.
Cheers…
–
Cowboy
Scientists were preparing an experiment to ask the ultimate question.
They had worked for months gathering one each of every computer that was
built. Finally the big day was at hand. All the computers were linked
together. They asked the question, “Is there a God?”. Lights started
blinking, flashing and blinking some more. Suddenly, there was a loud
crash, and a bolt of lightning came down from the sky, struck the
computers, and welded all the connections permanently together. “There
is now”, came the reply.
Using the instrumented kernel involves changing