Re: Linux not adhering to BIOS Drive boot order?

[Andreas Dilger]

Jeff writes:
> David Woodhouse wrote:
> > 
> > [e-mail] said:
> > >  One reason why this may NOT ever make it into the kernel is that I
> > > know "kernel poking at devices" is really frowned upon.
> > 
> > A possible alternative is to specify drives by serial number.
> 
> Currently mount(8) supports mounting by '-L <label>' and '-U <UUID>'. 
> Most modern mke2fs proggies will assign a UUID to each newly created
> filesystem.  For /etc/fstab, you can specify LABEL=xxx or UUID=xxx
> instead of a device name.

> The one thing I don't know is... can the kernel mount the root fs if
> only given the uuid?

You missed the context.  I was referring to the 2.2.5? patch that allowed
you to do exactly that - specify a kernel parameter "root=UUID:foo" or
"root=LABEL:bar".  I've re-worked it and will post after testing a bit.
My only hesitation was that kernel probing is frowned upon.  When UUID/LABEL
support for devfs came up at the Miami Linux Storage Workshop, it was
given the thumbs down.

If I get a chance I will also fix LILO to allow UUID/LABEL for root as well.

Cheers, Andreas
-- 
Andreas Dilger  \ "If a man ate a pound of pasta and a pound of antipasto,
                 \  would they cancel out, leaving him still hungry?"
http://www-mddsp.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/adilger/               -- Dogbert