mke2fs

[Vladimir Dronnikov]

>
> a bit of topic
>>
>> Another feature I'd like to introduce is optional putting of extlinux
>> (from Peter Anvin's syslinux) stuff (boot sector + ldlinux?) in the
>> shiny new filesystem, thus avoiding building external syslinux which
>> now requires you have not only perl, but python to be built :(
>>
>
> I have Python build after syslinux, so Python does not look mandatory to use
> syslinux.

I know that. Though then I have to disable building of some .c32 modules...
The point is to have in BB an utility which can deal with simple EXT2
cases -- "format" a loopback, e.g.
I ago tried to port extlinux to BB and had to gave up looking at
rather complex (to me) code of traversing/creating files on _existing_
EXT2. extlinux must place its ldlinux to a special location, right? To
do that, it must move anything that lies (may lie) in that location.
It must ensure filesystem is not mounted. And so on. Perfectly same
sanity check tasks mke2fs does! That is why I consider good to have in
mke2fs an option to make filesystem bootable -- because of tiny
overhead and ability to be completely compiled out. You see?

What on python in syslinux, I've been looking at the package evolution
for a time, and the trend is: once something appeared optional for
build -- it soon becomes mandatory.

Regards,
--
Vladimir