From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jan 27 21:30:48 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 28BA91065676; Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:30:48 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jhb@freebsd.org) Received: from cyrus.watson.org (cyrus.watson.org [65.122.17.42]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EFCE88FC0A; Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:30:47 +0000 (UTC) Received: from bigwig.baldwin.cx (66.111.2.69.static.nyinternet.net [66.111.2.69]) by cyrus.watson.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id A845946B2C; Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:30:47 -0500 (EST) Received: from jhbbsd.localnet (smtp.hudson-trading.com [209.249.190.9]) by bigwig.baldwin.cx (Postfix) with ESMTPA id 9DB9C8A024; Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:30:46 -0500 (EST) From: John Baldwin To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:27:37 -0500 User-Agent: KMail/1.12.1 (FreeBSD/7.2-CBSD-20100120; KDE/4.3.1; amd64; ; ) References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201001271627.37955.jhb@freebsd.org> X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.0.1 (bigwig.baldwin.cx); Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:30:46 -0500 (EST) X-Virus-Scanned: clamav-milter 0.95.1 at bigwig.baldwin.cx X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.5 required=4.2 tests=AWL,BAYES_00, SUBJECT_FUZZY_TION autolearn=no version=3.2.5 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.2.5 (2008-06-10) on bigwig.baldwin.cx Cc: Dan Naumov , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: booting off GPT partitions X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:30:48 -0000 On Wednesday 27 January 2010 11:45:36 am Dan Naumov wrote: > Hey > > I was under the impression that everyone and their dog is using GPT > partitioning in FreeBSD these days, including for boot drives and that > I was just being unlucky with my current NAS motherboard (Intel > D945GCLF2) having supposedly shaky support for GPT boot. But right now > I am having an email exchange with Supermicro support (whom I > contacted since I am pondering their X7SPA-H board for a new system), > who are telling me that booting off GPT requires UEFI BIOS, which is > supposedly a very new thing and that for example NONE of their current > motherboards have support for this. > > Am I misunderstanding something or is the Supermicro support tech misguided? GPT was defined along with EFI, so many folks assume that you have to use EFI to boot a GPT-labelled disk. However, FreeBSD has its own BIOS-based bootstrap that can handle GPT-labelled disks. I doubt the SuperMicro tech is familiar with that case. I thought I heard that some folks had added GPT support to grub as well. -- John Baldwin