[Sorry, couldn't split this one up any further.]
* Images preloaded by the boot loader had to be modules to be of any use
to the kernel. Extended the mechanism so that any images not accepted
by the module code would later be tried to be added as drivers by the
devfs. This is a little hacky ATM, since the devfs manages the drivers
using a hash map keyed by the drivers inode ID, which those drivers
obviously don't have.
* The devfs emulates read_pages() using read(), if the device driver
doesn't implement the former (all old-style drivers), thus making it
possible to BFS, which uses the file cache which in turn requires
read_pages(), on the device. write_pages() emulation is still missing.
* Replaced the kernel_args::boot_disk structure by a KMessage, which can
more flexibly be extended and deals more gracefully with
arbitrarily-size data. The disk_identifier structure still exists,
though. It is added as message field in cases where needed (non net
boot). Moved the boot_drive_number field of the bios_ia32 platform
specific args into the message.
* Made the stage 1 PXE boot loader superfluous. Moved the relevant
initialization code into the stage 2 loader, which can now be loaded
directly via PXE.
* The PXE boot loader does now download a boot tgz archive via TFTP. It
does no longer use the RemoteDisk protocol (it could actually be
removed from the boot loader). It also parses the DHCP options in the
DHCPACK packet provided by PXE and extracts the root path to be
mounted by the kernel.
* Reorganized the boot volume search in the kernel (vfs_boot.cpp) and
added support for network boot. In this case the net stack is
initialized and the network interface the boot loader used is brought
up and configured. Since NBD and RemoteDisk are our only options for
net boot (and those aren't really configurable dynamically) ATM, the
the boot device is found automatically by the disk device manager.

Booting via PXE does work to some degree now. The most grievous problem
is that loading certain drivers or kernel modules (or related activity)
causes a reboot (likely a triple fault, though one wonders where our
double fault handler is on vacation). Namely the keyboard and mouse input
server add-ons need to be deactivated as well as the media server.
A smaller problem is the net server, which apparently tries to
(re-)configure the network interface we're using to boot, which
obviously doesn't work out that well. So, if all this stuff is disabled
Haiku does fully boot, when using the RemoteDisk protocol (not being
able to use keyboard or mouse doesn't make this a particular fascinating
experience, though ;-)). I had no luck with NBD -- it seemed to have
protocol problems with the servers I tried.


git-svn-id: file:///srv/svn/repos/haiku/haiku/trunk@21611 a95241bf-73f2-0310-859d-f6bbb57e9c96

[Sorry, couldn't split this one up any further.]
* Images preloaded by the boot loader had to be modules to be of any use
to the kernel. Extended the mechanism so that any images not accepted
by the module code would later be tried to be added as drivers by the
devfs. This is a little hacky ATM, since the devfs manages the drivers
using a hash map keyed by the drivers inode ID, which those drivers
obviously don't have.
* The devfs emulates read_pages() using read(), if the device driver
doesn't implement the former (all old-style drivers), thus making it
possible to BFS, which uses the file cache which in turn requires
read_pages(), on the device. write_pages() emulation is still missing.
* Replaced the kernel_args::boot_disk structure by a KMessage, which can
more flexibly be extended and deals more gracefully with
arbitrarily-size data. The disk_identifier structure still exists,
though. It is added as message field in cases where needed (non net
boot). Moved the boot_drive_number field of the bios_ia32 platform
specific args into the message.
* Made the stage 1 PXE boot loader superfluous. Moved the relevant
initialization code into the stage 2 loader, which can now be loaded
directly via PXE.
* The PXE boot loader does now download a boot tgz archive via TFTP. It
does no longer use the RemoteDisk protocol (it could actually be
removed from the boot loader). It also parses the DHCP options in the
DHCPACK packet provided by PXE and extracts the root path to be
mounted by the kernel.
* Reorganized the boot volume search in the kernel (vfs_boot.cpp) and
added support for network boot. In this case the net stack is
initialized and the network interface the boot loader used is brought
up and configured. Since NBD and RemoteDisk are our only options for
net boot (and those aren't really configurable dynamically) ATM, the
the boot device is found automatically by the disk device manager.

Booting via PXE does work to some degree now. The most grievous problem
is that loading certain drivers or kernel modules (or related activity)
causes a reboot (likely a triple fault, though one wonders where our
double fault handler is on vacation). Namely the keyboard and mouse input
server add-ons need to be deactivated as well as the media server.
A smaller problem is the net server, which apparently tries to
(re-)configure the network interface we're using to boot, which
obviously doesn't work out that well. So, if all this stuff is disabled
Haiku does fully boot, when using the RemoteDisk protocol (not being
able to use keyboard or mouse doesn't make this a particular fascinating
experience, though ;-)). I had no luck with NBD -- it seemed to have
protocol problems with the servers I tried.


git-svn-id: file:///srv/svn/repos/haiku/haiku/trunk@21611 a95241bf-73f2-0310-859d-f6bbb57e9c96