Author Topic: Option to remember last system booted  (Read 5658 times)

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BladeRunner

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Option to remember last system booted
« on: April 18, 2009, 10:30:59 AM »
I am not sure what it would take to do this, or if it is even reasonably possible, but I would find it useful.

Provide an option to have Chameleon remember the last partition booted and retain it as the default.  Baring user intervention, that would be the partition booted until the user selects a different one.
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qbass

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Re: Option to remember last system booted
« Reply #1 on: April 19, 2009, 11:35:51 PM »
+1

I always find a reboot is a convenient time to run to the wc and/or get another cup o' joe. :P
It made me think about it.
It made me; think about it.

zhell

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Re: Option to remember last system booted
« Reply #2 on: May 03, 2009, 02:38:02 PM »
+1

Problem is that this requires Chameleon to write to the boot partition, which introduces the risk of a bug in Chameleon causing data loss. Still, grub is brave enough to do this...

breizhilien

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Re: Option to remember last system booted
« Reply #3 on: May 05, 2009, 08:25:14 PM »
+1
one idea for implementation of this: write a dummy file on the partition that is booted (for simplicity this can even be done by a script that is run after boot)
The default boot partition would be the partition that has the most recent file.

Superhai

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Re: Option to remember last system booted
« Reply #4 on: May 05, 2009, 09:37:30 PM »
write a dummy file on the partition that is booted (for simplicity this can even be done by a script that is run after boot)
The default boot partition would be the partition that has the most recent file.

Yeah, great, just implement NTFS, FAT, EXT file system support, etc... :/

BladeRunner

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Re: Option to remember last system booted
« Reply #5 on: May 06, 2009, 02:26:12 AM »
I could be way off base here, but I would guess that most, if not all Chameleon2 users will have Chameleon installed on a partition with Mac OS X installed.  That would say that there is an hfs+ partition with a /Extra directory.  If that is the case, write the default pointer there. 

Base system: HP Pavilion P6340f Desktop  Intel� Core2Quad�  CPU: Speed: 2.66 GHz   Package: Socket 775 LGA:  L2 Cache 2 x 2048 KB  RAM : 8.0 GB:  DDR3

Disks : 2 eSATA @ 2 TB (hardware raid 1), NAS 4 x 2 TB raid 5 Display : 21" Samsung on EVGA GeForce 9400 GT - PCIe - 1900x1080  Keyboard/mouse :  USB connected  OS Version : 10.6.0 from retail DVD + SW update to 10.6.5 - Kernel:  Vanilla mach_kernel

zhell

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Re: Option to remember last system booted
« Reply #6 on: May 09, 2009, 11:36:45 AM »
I could be way off base here, but I would guess that most, if not all Chameleon2 users will have Chameleon installed on a partition with Mac OS X installed.  That would say that there is an hfs+ partition with a /Extra directory.  If that is the case, write the default pointer there.
Or at least most users will have a HFS+ partition where Chameleon is installed in the boot sector. The user-friendliest way would probably be to write to a file on the partition where Chameleon is installed. How safe it is to do this is beyond me.

The problem with saving the selected partition only after boot is that you would need to implement this for every possible OS Chameleon can boot and the user would have to install this script/daemon whenever they install a new Windows 7 Beta etc. So while I agree that this would be the safest thing to do, it would be hard to implement.

BladeRunner

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Re: Option to remember last system booted
« Reply #7 on: May 09, 2009, 03:12:29 PM »
I could be way off base here, but I would guess that most, if not all Chameleon2 users will have Chameleon installed on a partition with Mac OS X installed.  That would say that there is an hfs+ partition with a /Extra directory.  If that is the case, write the default pointer there.
Or at least most users will have a HFS+ partition where Chameleon is installed in the boot sector. The user-friendliest way would probably be to write to a file on the partition where Chameleon is installed. How safe it is to do this is beyond me.

The problem with saving the selected partition only after boot is that you would need to implement this for every possible OS Chameleon can boot and the user would have to install this script/daemon whenever they install a new Windows 7 Beta etc. So while I agree that this would be the safest thing to do, it would be hard to implement.

If I understand correctly, Chameleon already reads from the partition where it is installed prior to boot.  In fact, it must do this to identify the theme to use and read any other key/value sets from the Boot.plist required to control it's current functions. 

I think that should mean it could also write to that partition prior to booting a system.  If Chameleon could write something to the install partition after the timeout/enter key and prior to transfer of control, wouldn't that avoid the user needing to do anything other than activate the remember option in the install partition Boot.plist?

There is a boot manager on Sourceforge called "Smart Boot Manager".  I use it in emergencies like when I have  trashed my HD boot sector.
 
    http://sourceforge.net/projects/btmgr/

It resides in the boot sector of your HD or on a floppy.  It has the ability to boot WinX, Linux and Mac OSX from internal drives or external USB drives.  It will remember, if asked, which was the last system started and make it the default the next time the system boots.  It allows the user to name each bootable partition.  It saves this data in the boot sector where it is installed.

If any of this sounds useful, the source is available at the link I provided.
« Last Edit: May 09, 2009, 04:11:13 PM by BladeRunner »
Base system: HP Pavilion P6340f Desktop  Intel� Core2Quad�  CPU: Speed: 2.66 GHz   Package: Socket 775 LGA:  L2 Cache 2 x 2048 KB  RAM : 8.0 GB:  DDR3

Disks : 2 eSATA @ 2 TB (hardware raid 1), NAS 4 x 2 TB raid 5 Display : 21" Samsung on EVGA GeForce 9400 GT - PCIe - 1900x1080  Keyboard/mouse :  USB connected  OS Version : 10.6.0 from retail DVD + SW update to 10.6.5 - Kernel:  Vanilla mach_kernel

ReanimationXP

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Re: Option to remember last system booted
« Reply #8 on: April 29, 2010, 09:53:46 PM »
+1

Joined this site specifically to ask for this feature.  PLEASE IMPLEMENT THIS!

Azimutz

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Re: Option to remember last system booted
« Reply #9 on: April 30, 2010, 06:01:38 PM »
Isn't "Default Partition" Boot.plist key enough??
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