Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 09:25:23 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: joeo@cracktown.com Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: booting from dos Message-ID: <200010130925.CAA23035@usr09.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.04.10010130148001.2769-100000@ra.nks.net> from "joeo@cracktown.com" at Oct 13, 2000 01:54:46 AM
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> Was just looking/messing around and found out that the netbsd/i386 > "dosboot.com" can load and boot a freebsd elf kernel. > > ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.5_ALPHA2/i386/installation/misc/ > > FreeBSD lost this functionality (IIRC) when it moved to elf and the dos > loader in /sys/boot/biosboot never got updated to understand elf images. Is it just DOS, or is it Windows 95/98/2000/NT as well? The old DOS boot for FreeBSD still works for DOS itself, if you load the transitional a.out second stage loader that can load ELF. I was under the impression that it would not work with FreeBSD as it is today because of the VM86() requirement of the FreeBSD kernel. When the BIOs vectors are replaced by Windows, and then thunked back to the real BIOS, without the Windows there to handle the traps to those vectors, the FreeBSD VM86() calls fail. If the NetBSD stuff works from Windows, I'd be very happy... it's a piece of a puzzle that's been bothering me ever since the Linux "testdrive" version was released. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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