Re: device syntax again

[Hollis Blanchard]

On Jan 18, 2005, at 5:04 AM, Yoshinori K. Okuji wrote:

> On Tuesday 18 January 2005 06:25, Hollis Blanchard wrote:
> > Nobody has replied to my previous mail about device syntax, so I will
> > assume that means you all agree that I'm right about requiring
> > different device syntaxes for different architectures. ;)
>
> You assume that aliases are made by a firmware, but I actually meant
> that GRUB could make arbitrary aliases in itself, since GRUB has its
> own device drivers. For example:
>
> alias hd0 /path/to/a/device
>
> This does not have to call Open Firmware, because GRUB itself can map
> "hd0" to "/path/to/a/device" transparently.

(Your mail above is actually regarding device syntax, so I will reply 
to this thread instead.)

For now let's not talk about where aliases are created. What about my 
original question: grub has just booted, and when it asks what device 
it was booted from (the /chosen/bootpath property) it gets this:
        /address@hidden,0/address@hidden,1/address@hidden/address@hidden,0
(that is the real "disk" device on Vincent's UltraSparc). The next 
thing we want to do is load a config file from the same device. What 
value should we put into "prefix"?

Is the only reason you're suggesting this "alias" scheme is to keep the 
PC-style device syntax? Please remember that PC BIOS has no native 
syntax, so grub had to create its own. That is fine, but other systems 
(like OpenBoot/Open Firmware and EFI) *do* have a native syntax, and 
one that does not easily fit into the manufactured syntax. Please do 
not try to unnaturally conform the native syntaxes to a primitive PC 
syntax. That will cause
1) complexity and bugs in code to translate between the two,
2) frustrating UI requirements ("no no, you have to run 'alias' 
first"), and
3) require users to learn yet another syntax.

If you don't agree with any of those three points, please let me know 
and I will provide examples.

-Hollis