GRUB future plans

[Grover, Andrew]

Hi all,

I just tried my first system with grub on it the other day and, after a
little learning curve, I was impressed. Using a decent bootloader was a nice
change from lilo.

I was intrigued by grub's module-loading feature. So, for
MultiBoot-compliant kernels you can also load modules? I am interested in
Linux, so I was wondering what you all thought about the effort needed to
either 1) make Linux Multiboot-compliant or 2) enhance grub to load Linux's
non-multiboot modules.

The motivation for this line of thought is that I believe that Linux should
move away from initrd. One way Linux could ditch initrd for good was if the
bootloader could load modules needed to mount the root fs.

Both Win2K and FreeBSD have bootloaders that can do this, and they use this
feature to their advantage. What do you think about its viability for Linux?

Thanks -- Regards -- Andy

----------------------------
Andrew Grover
Intel/MPG/Mobile Arch Lab
address@hidden