I am just finishing getting over a grub2/gpt problem that I am
sidestepping by using the IsoLinux part of SysLinux (until Devuan comes
out, so I can ditch Gentoo), and I had volunteered to do a presentation
on backups to my local engineering association.

As far as booting goes, there are too many ways to boot a computer.
Off the floppy, off the CD/DVD, off the hard disk, off NFS, off
Ethernet, off an encrypted disk, which requires interaction with a USB
device involved with encryption, and so on.

In the context of my backup presentation; the boss comes into work,
takes his USB thingy out of his pocket, types in his password, plugs it
into the USB port, and boots the backup computer. The computer won't
boot unless the USB thingy is active (has the correct password
entered). The backup computer asks for 1000 (more?) encryption keys,
one key for each object to be backed up that day. He then removes his
USB thingy. The next time he plugs in and boots, the backup computer
will download information as to what each key was used for.

I wasn't impressed with the SysLinux documentation, but how many
packages have good documentation? :-)

How many times can you stare at a short plain text file, and not see
that a single space and an equal sign are not the same thing?

I am not a proper computer engineer/scientist. I am a materials
science person who knows more than he should.

I once was at a lecture where (I think it was Brian Kernighan) was
talking about little languages. And I had used a bunch of them (eqn,
tbl, pic, ...).

I've looked at things related to yacc, bison, the recursive descent
parser in Perl and so on. I think if it is at all possible to design
something as a language (or at least a little language), it is easier
to design a consistent parser and document the thing.

I think a boot loader would be something that could be done this way.
But, I am not volunteering. I am due to try and start and composites
fabrication business soon (hopefully Devuan is up before then,
otherwise I will have to deal with Gentoo longer).

Gord