Re: 2 minor items to GRUB 0.9x

[Yoshinori K. Okuji]

At Thu, 16 Jan 2003 02:05:59 +0100,
Christoph Plattner wrote:
> XON/XOFF: From Terminal to GRUB (GRUB incomming side) I often
> encountered the problem on the command line (and menu), that using the
> mouse (cut&paste) or using some tools like "expect", GRUB looses
> characters, when it shifts the line, etc...

Can't you use RTS/CTS? That's unfortune.

Ok, if you can't use the hardware support, we can't help supporting
XON/XOFF.

> *1* The current code in stage2.c uses `bootp\n' as preset menu in
> the diskless mode, if no preset menu is defined.
> To solve the problem described above, we should also add `bootp\n'
> to the end of the preset menu, and not include the possible `bootp'
> in the preset menu.

I don't like that, because you cannot have full control of the preset
menu if GRUB implicitly inserts bootp. My opinion is that computer
shouldn't meddle whenever the user says something explicitly.

> *2* Give the `bootp' the possibility, to be only executed (valid),
> if the GRUB is really in the diskless mode (I mean, that it is
> the diskless build #ifdef SUPPORT_DISKLESS...#endif). This can be
> done with the option "--diskless-only" (or whatever name make
> sense here).

I don't like this, either. A solution is evil, if the solution just
solves one problem but not similar ones. In this case, such an option
could solve your problem, but not very useful generally. Consider
those who use rarp rather than bootp. Adding the option into bootp
doesn't help them, even though rarp is not very different from bootp
from the point of view of users.

Also, it is rather easy to think of situations where you want to
execute something if GRUB is NOT booted from a network. Then, would
you add --not-diskless?

IMO, the best solution is to add a scripting language into GRUB. It is
not acceptable for 0.9x, though.

Okuji