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Re: In-built shell for Redboot


wang cui wrote:
> I am not a expert in Shell technology, but I'd like to see a general 
> purpose shell functionality can be used both in Redboot and app. :-)
> Andrew described many necessary requirement of shell in another mail, I 
> strongly agree with him.
> Could we port a common shell from GNU world? That will be fantastic.

Sorry, we've been round this bend before.  A generic shell (bash or
whatnot) does not make sense for eCos as there is no notion of programs,
or of forking, or of ...  It's simply not the right tool.

If you need functionality like this, run Linux.

> 
>>
>> Would we like to follow the subject "In-built shell for RedBoot" ...
>>
>> Ah, this idea does scratch the RedBoot body (or spirit? :)! I saw/see
>> neither LiloShell nor GrubShell, but, with TAB button on LILO start,
>> for example, it's possible to select an `init' process as a parameter.
>> Sometimes, they add to parameters 'init=/bin/sh'. It looks like that
>> it's possible to add same choice on RedBoot startup to replace default
>> RedBoot's CLI loop. It would be a cool feature, but, what do they
>> (RedBoot experts) think about?
>>
>> Though, looking the RedBoot's 'cyg_start' entry, it seems that was done.
>> There is one conditional call of the 'cyg_plf_redboot_startup' there. 
>> That
>> piece has been called before a start of the RedBoot's event loop, while
>> (true) {...}. And RedBoot had madden a lot of initial work (all needed
>> things for most of us) since a reset. More that, RedBoot gives us an
>> abstract I/O with virtual channels (serial, ethernet), TFTP/HTTP clients,
>> FLASH support, etc. Therefore, everybody can just put his own event loop
>> in his own redboot platform startup function and using the '_rb_gets'
>> will have a fun with a lovely interpreter (= shell).
>>
>> I had a fun with an embedded Tcl shell in RedBoot from that point, for
>> example.  Though, there was 'malloc' evil there. Another limitation of
>> such "In-built shell for Redboot", there won't be any kernel things 
>> there.
>> But, for some tasks that's a solution.  Ah, if I would have an objloader
>> for ARM like Anthnony has for PowerPC (services/objloader) ...
>>
>> There is yet another issue with such a tweak, that's the RedBoot's
>> 'do_version' call. We cannot hide the RedHat's copyright notice, can we?
>>
>> Sergei
>>
> 
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-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Thomas                 |  Consulting for the
MLB Associates              |    Embedded world
------------------------------------------------------------

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