mail 1.8KB

12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940
  1. Date: 11/9/2001 3:56 PM
  2. Received: 11/9/2001 4:05 PM
  3. From: Steve Tilden, stilden@sicom-sys.com
  4. ...
  5. 2) I have added conditional code to main.c from Etherboot 5.0.4 to add
  6. a new default boot option and I have included the modified main.c as an
  7. attachment to this message.
  8. As I received Etherboot 5.0.4, in the Config file, if you select
  9. ASK_BOOT with a non zero time-out option, then you also get to set
  10. ANS_DEFAULT = ANS_NETWORK or ANS_DEFAULT = ANS_LOCAL to determine what
  11. will happen if the operator does not respond to the prompt. I have now
  12. added conditional code in main.c such that if you set ANS_DEFAULT =
  13. ANS_AUTO, the default answer will be set according to whether or not
  14. there is a hard disk in the system (as detected by the BIOS). If a hard
  15. disk is present, then if the operator does nothing, the system will boot
  16. from it. If a hard disk does not exist, then again if the operator does
  17. nothing, the system will boot via the network. Either way, for our
  18. particular environment, the operator has to do nothing to get it to boot
  19. correctly. Yet the operator can still override the default selection
  20. to, for example, allow a unit without a hard disk, to boot directly from
  21. a floppy rather than the network, or to allow a unit with a hard disk,
  22. to boot from the network.
  23. I don't know it the code I have added might be correct for a future
  24. production version of Etherboot, but I thought I'd send it to you and
  25. let you get it into the system if you feel it might be appropriate.
  26. Thanks,
  27. Steve Tilden
  28. Sicom Systems Inc.
  29. stilden@sicom-sys.com
  30. [Ed: On a compliant BIOS, it will actually boot the next device in the
  31. BIOS list if local is selected, either explicitly or by timeout, which
  32. may or may not be the hard disk, which is why it's less than general and
  33. not included in the distribution by default.]