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Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2002 08:26:28 -0800
From: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
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To: Werner Almesberger <wa@almesberger.net>
CC: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com>,
        "Erik A. Hendriks" <hendriks@lanl.gov>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@zip.com.au>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC] x86 ELF bootable kernels/Linux booting Linux/LinuxBIOS
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Werner Almesberger wrote:

  [...lots of good stuff...]

> 
> Worse yet, the file-based interface kind of conveys the promise that
> the preloader is actually not necessary. This creates an incentive to
> keep things that way, so more and more policy will have to be added
> to the kernel, simply because externalizing it would shatter that
> cute "loader-less" image.
> 

  [...]

> 
> So, while a file-based interface looks cool, I think a "thin"
> memory-based interface will serve us better in the long run.
> 


I agree with this sentiment.  As far as the filebased interface implying 
it is self-contained/loaderless, we can just look at this thread as well 
as Linux history -- the boot sector in a Linux kernel is basically 
useless and doesn't even work on a lot of hardware today, yet people are 
still refusing to deprecate it "because it's so convenient"...

	-hpa



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