But that would not be very compatible.
I have a new idea:
what about supporting 'fast reboot', and then we can use this 'fast
reboot'
feature for the oops-reboot.
1) what's 'fast reboot'.
Windows 95 has the feature that you can reboot Windows without
restarting
the computer, i.e. not BIOS self test. Much faster.
It's implemented by an old DOS program that sits below Windows:
(WIN.COM)
if Windows exits with return code 0x42, then it will restart windows
instead of shutting down the computer.
2) How could we implement it?
We could add a new proc entry /proc/lilo_sect.
You write the current boot sector to this sector during startup.
(lilo must update the proc copy).
If we want to perform a fast reset, then we switch back to real mode,
move that sector to 0x7c00 (??) and we
execute the lilo sector.
--> kernel reloaded, but memory not cleared.
setup_arch() could check if we have an oops, and move it into dmesg.
Advantages:
* fast reboot, a new feature
* we could store oops reports during startup: start with the buggy
kernel,
oops, lilo, switch to the stable kernel --> oops in the system log.
-- Manfred- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/