Make parsing of home/opt/restore more flexible?

[Spix]

I really like how you parse the TCE kernel boot parameter.  Booting TCL from a multi-boot USB flash drive, I found the ability to specify the TCE device by label, and the TCE directory, a necessity to make things work smoothly.

What I don't understand, though, is why you've hampered the parsing of the other boot parameters, such as home, opt, and restore, having them expect only a partition as input.  Would it be possible to to expand the parsing of these variables to match the flexibility of the parsing for TCE?  Or is there something I'm missing that would allow me to use these parameters/features smoothly while booting from a multi-boot flash drive (I'm using Grub4DOS as the boot-loader, with a single FAT16/32 partition)?

[^thehatsrule^]

It looks like it may be supported (but maybe not documented?)

EDIT: Ah.. do you mean the uuid/label, and/or custom directories?

[mikshaw]

It's not really hampered, in the sense that this verb implies intentional action to reduce functionality (e.g. DRM).  It seems that it's more in a state of flux, perhaps?  It does appear that all of the user-selected drives/directories used for persistent content could be more uniformly handled.

I wonder from time to time why there isn't just one single function used for all of these.  It would be smaller and simpler...easier for the users in the sense that all drive/directory selection works exactly the same, and easier for developers in the sense that there is only one block of code to handle for future changes/additions.

[roberts]

UUID and LABELS are handled in one place, tc-functions and they can be used in all areas:

Code: [Select]

APPEND initrd=/tce/tinycore.gz quiet nodhcp waitusb=5 tce=UUID="1c6e41df-b1c3-4054-801f-5fe6f4280dc6" home=UUID="aeb3a3a8-1eae-434c-be2a-8c2e0bc72c4e" opt=UUID="aeb3a3a8-1eae-434c-be2a-8c2e0bc72c4e"

[Spix]

I'm sorry for the lack of follow-up; after a week of no response, I stopped checking in on this thread/message board.

mikshaw: It seems hampered to me.  When I took a quick look at the code a while back, there didn't seem to be any reason to NOT allow the user to specify directories for the 'other' parameters, when the hard work had already been done for processing of the TCE parameter.  I don't understand why a user would need to have control over the TCE directory, but not care about the directories for the opt, home, and restore directories.

roberts: Your reply doesn't seem to address my post/concern in the least bit.  I understand that you can specify a device/partition by UUID or label for the home/opt/restore parameters (and this has been clearly stated in the notes/instructions), but my issue is with them not supporting directories (appending a slash and supplying a directory name in the paramter, as is possible with the TCE parameter).  If I'm wrong, please provide detailed correction.

Now, I realize handling of a user-specified directory doesn't necessarily need to be done for each parameter; I think it would be completely reasonable to have a separate parameter specifying a 'root' directory of sorts (on the device/partition specified to the TCE/home/opt/restore parameters) for TCL to work in, thereby searching for--and creating if necessary--the TCE/home/opt/restore directories within this root directory.  Again, if this was an option that I somehow missed, please let me know (I haven't looked at anything related to TCL since making my original post).

[^thehatsrule^]

It was just a bit unclear what your first post meant (at least, imo).  Here's a related thread: http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=3578.0