On Sun, 3 May 2009 09:39:23 -0700 Don Jackson <don.jack...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On May 3, 2009, at 9:15 AM, Thomas Pfaff wrote: > > > On Sun, 3 May 2009 08:45:55 -0700 > > "J.C. Roberts" <list-...@designtools.org> wrote: > >> Thirdly, it should be removed. The new installer destined for 4.6 > >> already does the right thing, so the i386\amd64 specific etc/ > >> boot.conf > >> hack is redundant and leads to confusion. > > > > Hmm, how should I specify that I want to use com0 as console then? > > Agreed, boot.conf is VERY useful. > > Another important use is to reboot into another temporary kernel. I > use this to boot into a YAIFO-like installer, so I can easily re- > install a running machine from the network without > having to much with BIOS setting for pxeboot, etc. And if this > process fails for some reason (before you reformat your disks :-) ), > it is good to have the regular kernels sitting around for recovery > purposes. > > Don I never said the boot.conf was not useful. I said the i386\amd64 hack for loading kernels is redundant and leads to confusion. The new installer (destined for 4.6) in snapshots *already* picks the right kernel (GENERIC or GENERIC.MP) for the system, and installs it as /bsd. On all archs, when you wish to boot to a different on-disk kernel you cab do it either by copying/moving kernel file to /bsd, and/or specifying the kernel file at boot time `boot /mybsd.custom.hack` When you treat i386\amd64 differently with the boot.conf kernel designation feature, you are not only making things less portable, but worse, you're showing a bias towards what many consider to be a flawed system design. Now, let's say you are using the /etc/boot.conf hack to boot to bsd.mp, and you go to update your stable system running an MP kernel. You read the FAQ and follow the directions for installing a new kernel and rebooting before building the whole system. When you do `make install` in your ../compile/GENERIC.MP/ directory, the newly built kernel gets installed as /bsd You supposedly reboot to your new kernel... and guess what? --Due to your boot.conf hack you're still running your *old* /bsd.mp kernel rather than your newly built /bsd kernel. If your subsequent build of the whole system fails with some mysterious error due to booting to the old kernel, and you start yammering on misc@ about reading/following the FAQ, you're still wrong because you weren't paying attention. Tricky, confusing situations like the above should not be allowed to happen. It's a design flaw, and especially so since it's a hack to support an unnecessary feature for particular architecture. -- J.C. Roberts
