Wookey wrote:
> I don't understand Nick's feeling that TCL's investment in automation
> _requires_ bootldr. Surely the changes required in that infrastructure to
> use another bootloader are trivial? i.e. the text that gets sent by said
> infrastructure for 'load kernel', 'load rootfs', 'reset', and 'load
> bootloader' might change slightly, but perhaps I am missing something?

That is true, technically speaking, but there's a whole automated
Loon-programming infrastructure at the factory (a dozen or so PCs at two
specially-built workbenches, so duplicating it for L3 isn't a realistic
option) which relies on a whole bunch of software which is intimately
tied in to all manner of web pages, databases and so on, and earning its
keep in use every day by non-loon-expert people.

Changing fillballoon to deal with a different boot loader is easy.
Rolling out a modified script into an infrastructure like that and
dealing with the resulting fallout is non-trivial and costs time and
Real Money (TM), so keeping the required changes as small as possible is
a good thing.

I'm agnostic about how this is achieved, but will be on the receiving
end of some of the grief if it isn't...

Chris
-- 
Chris Jones - chris@martin-jones.com
Martin-Jones Technology Ltd, makers of Solidlights
http://www.solidlights.co.uk/