DSL Ideas and Suggestions :: Cheat Codes in a Text File

I'm fairly new to DSL so it's very possible that this has been discussed (although I did a forum search and it came up empty) so please excuse me if I'm repeating someone.

My suggestion is to add a simple text file placed in the / directory of any boot device (USB, LiveCD, HD, etc.) that would contain the boot up cheat codes. DSL would simply look for the existance of that file and boot off those codes if nothing was manually typed in at the boot up screen.

This would eliminate having to remaster a USB thumbdrive or CD each time you want to make any changes. You could simply edit that text file.

Thoughts?

Well, if you're using qemu to boot embedded, then you can save your favorite cheatcodes in the "dsl-windows.bat" or the "dsl-linux.sh".

From a CD, though, I don't know. I guess I'm content to type "dsl qemu frugal mydsl=harddisk restore=harddisk" each time.

Good idea though.

Quote (cmanb @ June 13 2006,21:47)

I guess I'm content to type "dsl qemu frugal mydsl=harddisk restore=harddisk" each time.

The main thing for me is changing setups...I have a fileserver that I like to run on it's own - no mouse, keyboard, or monitor. (It runs SSH and a VNC client at boot up for external access.)
However, I just added some memory so now I can run DSL "toram". Unfortunately, that requires the remaster.

One cool thing I just discovered is that after burning the DSL image to a CD-R, you can still add mydsl files and add or replace an old backup file as a multisession burn. That's what made me think of the cheat code text file - because you can replace existing files, sort of like upgrading firmware.

Quote

My suggestion is to add a simple text file placed in the / directory of any boot device (USB, LiveCD, HD, etc.) that would contain the boot up cheat codes.

That kind of feature is only possible if
a) you simply set your computer to start from you hd (or floppy, or usb device) that contains bootloader that loads kernel from dsl cd and reads the boot commands from your hd.
b) (future?) dsl bootloader feature could first check your USB stick and hd for a text file containing boot cmds...

Hmm... and then wait if user wants to add his/her own boot cmds. If timeouts then uses the cmd from that file. If file doesn't exist then would use default from cd.

Just a thought,

There is a file in the root directory of whatever you boot from called syslinux.cfg

If you edit it either in DSL or on another machine, the second line (which starts APPEND) contains all of the cheat codes passed by default if you don't press anthing, there is a timeout there as well which you could reduce a bit if you wanted.

If you added or substiuted your cheat codes in there, it would do what I think you are suggesting.

Just a word of warning though, if you reduce the timeout too much or set some silly cheat codes, you could make DSL not load so don't mess around too much if you couldn't change it back again on another machine easily!

Enjoy!

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