[svlug] gui lilo..?

[Rafael]

On Thu, 19 Oct 2000, Greg Herlein wrote:

> > How is this lame?  Why do things have to be complex to be useful?  
> 
> It IS lame.  LILO is actually very simple.  It does not need a
> graphics card to display itself - any old text console will work.
> If it's graphical, what resolution do you propose?  What color
> depth?  How will it handle it if I swap an old VGA (not
> SVGA) card and it finds that the card cannot support the default
> resolution?
> 
> LILO is the lowest common denominator and boots on anything.

That's an unfortunate thing on PeeCees. If the BIOS was more than a bunch
of outdated functions for DOS we could boot up any image not just OS
kernel. Sparc machines can do that and run some basic diagnostics
including boot from the net. One can also replace the logo if he chooses
to do so.

On the other hand, Intel motherboard dumps their big logo (GUI) on the
screen and all you can do is disable it. No easy way to replace it that I 
know of. 

In any case, we are victims of PC architecture sucess. LILO could be
bigger and fancier if it were not for the PRIMITIVE boot functions in IBM
AT compatible BIOS! Remember cylinder numbers and hard drive geometry
fiasco? Better yet, LILO or some kind of equivalent of it should be part
of the BIOS, no need to keep that code on disk drive.

> Perhaps a nice GUI interface that writes a lilo.conf file would
> be nice... but LILO itself?  No, I think that's best left plain
> old text, thank you.

Correct.
......................
> So, why is it that we should have a GUI for LILO functionality?

To push this thread a bit further, why just GUI for LILO? I suggest, no,
demand that LILO speaks (literary) the items on it's menu and takes
commands from the microphone. For example we could have a LILO sound
prompt like this: "to boot Linux say 'linux', to boot windoze say 'DOG'"

My favourite LILO sound prompt: "to boot linux insert paper tape, to
boot Windows insert Word document"

> > This is a perfect example of the snobbery that exists in the
> > Linux community
> 
> And your answer is a perfect example of rising in flame when
> someone calls your idea stupid.  Rather than providing any kind
> of rational basis for why you think a LILO GUI is such a good
> idea, you call us snobs.  I just gave you a rational reason why
> NOT to make a GUI for LILO.  Can you rise above flaming an
> provide a reasonable answer?  If not, your idea is stupid.  It's
> that simple.

Who cares what the interface is? If you can afford it, use GUI, if not (as
in small embedded systems) then don't.

> > many people have actually said that GRUB is superior to Lilo
> > in many aspects including its interface.
> 
> Gee, isn't this vapor-experience?  You're arguing that your idea
> has merit based on a package that you have never even
> used.  Geesh.

If one is better in somebody's opinion then use that one. That's freedom
of choice.

> Greg
> 
> /**************************************************************
> Greg Herlein                                   greg at herlein.com
> Herlein Engineering			        www.herlein.com
> ***************************************************************/
> 

In general I agree that if you have any kind of PC then text based LILO is
fine. But for those who have new machines with more capacity I see no
problem enhancing it with GUI or sound or whatever. One can learn a lot
from doing different things so installing or configuring LILO to show
graphics at boot prompt is not ethernal sin. Even monitors have icons
(GUI) for setup these days, why not BIOS/LILO?

My home systems are up for a month at a time, other even longer so I would
gain very little from seeing nice GUI during bootup.

   O__  ---- Rafael Skodlar
  c/ /'_ --- Linux Imagineer since 1994
 (*) \(*) -- There is a tunnel at the end of light.