From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: subject: Re: [9fans] why do we need 9load? From: C H Forsyth To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 07:09:48 +0100 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 4063f582-eacc-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 >>Seems to me I could load Plan 9 from flash, and then just have it load the >>real kernel we want. it was done on some older Plan 9 platforms. it's also what we do with Inferno on some (not enough) platforms. the kernel has got most of the drivers, after all. if you keep a collection of commands in #/, you can do flash management conveniently through a name space. one of the dangers in spending too long on a bootstrap is that you'll end up writing an operating system, with its own drivers, its own command structure of course, with less thought than you'd put into a proper one. it's often as much code than the thing it's booting, or even more, and certainly that much more to port and maintain. you sometimes do need something small during the initial stages of a port to a platform, especially if you must load it as S records, but it's best not to go overboard. 9load is probably at the limit. in other words, you realise 9load is not too bad, once you've had to look at one of the sourceforge alternatives and weighed it.