-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 James Cloos schrieb: > B> I would hesitate to say it's the *sanest* thing to do, but we > should at B> least get it into ~arch and make sure our > documentation is up to date. > > Actually, given grub2's crazy config, the real upgrade from grub1 > is sys-boot/syslinux's extlinux(1). > > The configuration and operation styles are much more comfortable > for those who are familiar with grub1. > > It would make a better default for x86/amd64 than grub1 or grub2.
Speaking as sys-boot/syslinux maintainer, I would like to see it included in the official installation documentation. However there are some differences between grub{,2} and syslinux/extlinux that could block universal adoption. Installation: Syslinux installs into a partition which means that /boot must be on one of the supported filesystems. Currently these are btrfs, ext2/3/4 and vfat (ntfs support will come in the next release). Also this means that /boot cannot reside on a logical partition. To my knowledge, there are no plans to allow booting from LVM either. Dual-booting: Telling users to create GPT instead of MBR partitions could address the logical partition issue, however this would make dual-booting Windows difficult. And Windows has been observed to behave strangely when its BCD is not on a partition which has the boot flag set. There are workarounds but documenting them would increase the complexity of the handbook. EFI: Syslinux does not boot on EFI yet. Not a big problem as UEFI will fall back to BIOS mode but this can bite users on Apple hardware. Xen: Booting Xen generally works, but some specialties like Mini-OS aren't supported and likely won't be in the near future. tl;dr Syslinux/extlinux can replace grub in many if not most cases. But for a number of setups it is not well-suited. So a documented and stable grub2 will still be needed. Best regards, Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk9EwsIACgkQ+gvH2voEPRBInwCfT9t7qmILcCG11pKcJJlJSMpr hggAmwaeo4sl2OwnyhLr5sZFV+hUM7Vc =l/NZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----