Feedback on proposed loader changes

[Warner Losh]

On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 9:58 AM, Devin Teske <devin at shxd.cx> wrote:

>
>
> > On Feb 1, 2018, at 1:51 AM, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk at phk.freebsd.dk>
> wrote:
> >
> > --------
> > In message <CANCZdfoF4M1k=wOzueg0KQk9tRoQT-hO0SrB51wxv=-
> n3ESiUw at mail.gmail.com>, Warner Losh writes:
> >
> >> So I'd like feedback on two questions: Should I kill the forth features
> I
> >> oulined above? And should I make the build system build multiple loaders
> >> with a link controlling the default?
> >
> > I think you should just move forward and go for the end-stage
> > without too many temporary bandaids.
> >
> > The loader is pretty decoupled from everything, so in case anybody
> > needs any of these Forth cornercases, they can use 11.X loader with
> > very little, if any, trouble.
> >
>
> As a person that both reviewed the GSoC code you are working with
> (in-depth; including a list of short-comings) and the most likely person to
> bring it up-to-par after it is committed, I have 2 opinions:
>
> 1. Please allow both boot systems for a while so that the lua-based menu
> can be made as feature full as the Forth menu. Example: submenus were added
> in Forth long after the GSoC lua project had ended
>

OK. The plan outlined does that. The lua code will be installed into /boot.
But it will be .lua, so no conflicts with .4th. And we start from
loader.lua not loader.rc.


> 2. Please don’t force us to run Lua until I can code the new features
>

OK


> And as the principal author of the Forth menu since 9.0:
>
> 3. Please give me a way to run my code (at the very least until I can
> bring the Lua up to snuff; and if I can’t just let me run Forth
> in-perpetuity).
>
> Interrupting boot1 so I can drive the system in the pre-boot Execution env
> is very important to me.


For !EFI, this is relatively easy. boot1 you can type /boot/loader_forth
instead of the default /boot/loader if the symlink changes and you want to
go back.

For EFI the answer is more complicated. boot1.efi is going away, so
loader.efi will move to the ESP in \efi\freebsd\loader.efi, but it's easy
enough to have multiple versions there (loader_lua.efi and
loader_forth.efi) and select via EFI Shell or EFI Env variables which one
you want should you need to fall back.

Does that answer your concerns?

Warner