#9435 NORM Not Tri: OFW has 256 char limit on boot paramerters

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#9435: OFW has 256 char limit on boot paramerters
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           Reporter:  rsmith               |       Owner:  wmb at firmworks.com
               Type:  defect               |      Status:  new              
           Priority:  normal               |   Milestone:  Not Triaged      
          Component:  ofw - open firmware  |     Version:  not specified    
         Resolution:                       |    Keywords:                   
        Next_action:  never set            |    Verified:  0                
Deployment_affected:                       |   Blockedby:                   
           Blocking:                       |  
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Comment(by wmb at firmworks.com):

 With some fiddling, I can extend the maximum size of those strings - but
 it begs the question of when the cmdline expansion will stop.  A cmdline
 that long is just crazy.  Anything that won't fit in about 60 characters
 is already very difficult for a human to process, exceeding most people's
 capacity to remember what is supposed to be there and their patience when
 checking for errors.

 I have argued for several years that the "correct" length for the cmdline
 for the OLPC kernel is 0, since we have a targeted kernel configuration
 that's intended to run well on this platform, instead of a "one size fits
 any PC that has ever been built since time began".  Any option that is not
 really optional is really just a usability screwup.  I might be persuaded
 that it's okay to have bootdev= on the cmdline - at least in the case
 where you are booting from external media - but even that can be argued
 the other way, as the boot device information is available in the device
 tree, where the kernel could get it directly instead of having to pass it
 through a channel that begs for user intervention.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/9435#comment:1>
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