US 5,574,915 AGranted

Object-oriented booting framework

AssigneeTaligent, Inc.

InventorsSteven P. Lemon, Patrick D. Ross

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Abstract

An object-oriented framework contains program code for booting a processor with a volatile storage from an attached non-volatile storage. The framework provides a hardware independent boot image base class which can be subclassed to provide boot image program code for each specific hardware configuration. The boot image program code performs low level tasks such as determining the hardware configuration and loading kernel code into the volatile memory. Once the kernel has been loaded into memory it is initialized using the configuration information to provide a hardware-independent platform. Further non-subclassable code is used to establish support for accessing object-oriented shared libraries in the non-volatile storage. Finally an object-oriented environment is established by instantiating a file object from the shared libraries.

Claims15

Dependent claims

An apparatus for booting an object-oriented operating system comprising a kernel program and a plurality of shared libraries containing hardware-independent, object-oriented programs onto a computer system comprising a plurality of hardware devices connected in a configuration, the apparatus comprising:

(a) a processor;
(b) a volatile storage attached to and under the control of the processor;
(c) a non-volatile storage attached to and under the control of the processor, the non-volatile storage having the kernel program, the plurality of shared libraries and a hardware-specific boot image program stored therein;
(d) boot image delivery means for loading the boot image program from the non-volatile storage into the volatile storage;
(e) framework setup means for causing the processor to execute the boot image program to load the kernel program from the non-volatile storage into the volatile storage, to determine the configuration of the plurality of hardware devices and to generate configuration data in a universal format;
and
(f) framework execution means for causing the processor to initialize the kernel with the configuration data, to start a program which provides paging between the volatile storage and the non-volatile storage and to instantiate an object oriented file system from the shared libraries.

4 more elements

A booting framework stored on a computer-readable medium for booting an object-oriented operating system comprising a kernel program and a plurality of shared libraries containing hardware-independent, object-oriented programs onto a computer system comprising a volatile storage, a non-volatile storage and a plurality of hardware devices connected in a configuration, the framework comprising:

(a) subclassable boot image class information comprising information defining a data structure for holding references to a plurality of boot program files and program code defining member functions for adding boot program files to, and deleting boot program files from, the data structure and a member function for checking that the plurality of boot program files includes at least a hardware-dependent boot image delivery program for loading the boot files from the non-volatile storage into the volatile storage and a hardware-dependent boot setup program for loading the kernel program from the non-volatile storage into the volatile storage, for determining the configuration of the plurality of hardware devices and for generating configuration data in a universal format;
and
(b) non-subclassable boot execution class information including program code for initializing the kernel with the configuration data, for instituting paging between the volatile storage and the non-volatile storage and for instantiating a file system object from the shared libraries.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.