Can an ELF launcher do this...?

[exfacter]

Hey all, hoping to contribute to this community a bunch.

You guys know if there is an ELF launcher (i.e. PS2menu, LaunchELF, etc) that can launch ELFs, but also return to the ELF launching menu when done?

I currently have LaunchELF installed, and I have to power down the PS2 each time I want to change the program I want to run.

(Of course, I usually launch ps2link (on PS2) and xlink (on PC), and from there I can launch ELFs... and then Reset and launch another ELF. But what if I want to stop running ps2link altogether and run something else? LaunchELF doesn't let me, anyone know if any others do?)

Thanks.

[dlanor]

Hey all, hoping to contribute to this community a bunch.

You guys know if there is an ELF launcher (i.e. PS2menu, LaunchELF, etc) that can launch ELFs, but also return to the ELF launching menu when done?

It simply doesn't work like that, as such a program would not just be an ELF launcher then, but rather an Operating System. The big difference is that a launcher passes total control to the launched program, while an OS keeps total control for itself even when launching a normal program. (In a way PS2LINK can be regarded as a hybrid between these two.)

So with a launcher, it is normally up to the launched program to either forbid or allow its own termination and instead relaunch the original launcher.

A typical example of such usage is how uLaunchELF can start SMS, which can then relaunch uLaunchELF as either mc0:/BOOT/BOOT.ELF or mc0:/B?DATA-SYSTEM/BOOT.ELF (where '?' is a region dependent character) when terminating itself.

I currently have LaunchELF installed, and I have to power down the PS2 each time I want to change the program I want to run.

That depends on what program you are running, and its own capabilities to relaunch the main launcher. Any good programmer can equip his/her programs with an exit capability similar to that of SMS, but unfortunately not many have done so.

(Of course, I usually launch ps2link (on PS2) and xlink (on PC), and from there I can launch ELFs... and then Reset and launch another ELF. But what if I want to stop running ps2link altogether and run something else? LaunchELF doesn't let me, anyone know if any others do?)

Again you are misplacing the responsibility for this.
You say that it is LaunchELF that doesn't let you do what you want, despite the fact that LaunchELF is not even running at the time...

LaunchELF is a launcher not an OS, so it does not keep control after launching another application. It is then that application which is in control, and the responsibility for further launching rests upon it alone.

Best regards: dlanor

[exfacter]

Thanks for the detailed response. I did not know the boot elf's typically relinquished control. The upside is I can probably overwrite boot.elf once I launch ExecFTP... nice. :)