Further step in GRUB - Environment

[Christoph Plattner]

Hello Mr. OKUJI and all other GRUB people,

        I want to start a discussion on GRUB concerning managing
the environment. This topic is NOT subject of the release 1.0 of GRUB.

We began to discuss on this subject one year ago. My idea was to have a
management of an machine global environment as for example OpenBoot of
a SUN workstation does.

I have some ideas on this point, and I want to discuss those points.

The idea is:

1) There are system generated environment environment variables like
        $MEM, $IP, $IP_SERVER, $ROOT, etc...
   and user set variables

2) The user can set variables with
        VAR=value
   on the GRUB command line or in the menu file

3) Each environment variable can be used in every FRUB command line or
   menu file with
        $VAR
   For example in the `kernel' command
        kernel /boot/vmlinuz mem=$MEM root=/dev/sda2

4) There is a command like `printenv' to see all variables set

5) Unsetting a variable with
        VAR=

6) Additional to the command `module' there is for example a `modulenv'
without
   parameters. This defines an ASCII module including all environment
variables
   (generated like via `printenv') and used from multiboot spec kernels. 

7) The most difficult, optional point: Emulating the NVRAM
functionality. Perhaps
   the environment can be saves (all user variables, or only user
selected vars with
   a special command). Where to save ? In the space beyond the MBR, also
used
   for stage-1.5 ? - In this point, we have to discuss many
possibilities.

The whole environment stuff also adds functionality to GRUB and does not
break
any of the current designs. It is an add on for those, who want to
manage the
the machine as having a boot monitor like a SUN workstation.

The have the setting of boot setup and autoboot configuration, this
stuff above
can also be used. If the environment variables are saved anywhere (like
NVRAM),
the menu file can contain something line

        defaul = $BOOT

or similar....

I hope some of the "GRUB hackers" are interested in this idea and
discussion ....

With friendly regards

        Christoph Plattner



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