From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Apr 14 14:37:05 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F01EB37B401; Mon, 14 Apr 2003 14:37:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from faui40.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (faui40.informatik.uni-erlangen.de [131.188.34.40]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7699043F75; Mon, 14 Apr 2003 14:37:01 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from eckert@faui40p.informatik.uni-erlangen.de) Received: from faui40p.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (faui40p.informatik.uni-erlangen.de [131.188.34.77]) id XAA07617; Mon, 14 Apr 2003 23:37:00 +0200 (MEST) Received: (from eckert@localhost) by faui40p.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (8.9.3/8.1.6-FAU) id XAA28381; Mon, 14 Apr 2003 23:36:59 +0200 (MEST) From: Toerless Eckert Message-Id: <200304142136.XAA28381@faui40p.informatik.uni-erlangen.de> In-Reply-To: from John Baldwin at "Apr 14, 2003 4:22:59 pm" To: jhb@FreeBSD.org (John Baldwin) Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2003 23:36:59 +0200 (MEST) Organisation: CSD IMMD IV, University of Erlangen, Germany X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL42 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org cc: eckert@i4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de Subject: Re: boot2 broken ? (booting from pst fails) X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2003 21:37:05 -0000 > As you pointed out, FreeBSD does try to avoid dirty hacks like this for the > sake of a cleaner and more flexible design. But you can't have it without affecting compatiblity. > Hardcoding the sectors would make > things like booting kernels directly from boot2 as well as booting > /boot/loader.old in the case that /boot/loader breaks impossible. If booting loader.old is so important, why not boot2.old ? It's no different. At some point there is something hardcoded. I don't see the big issue here in hardcoding the loader sectors instead of effetively the boot2 sectors. Heck, one could even hardcode sectors of both loader and loader.old for the choice. Sure, it would be nice to not depend on this. I for once think it's perfectly valid to spare a full freebsd partition just for the linear encoding of the bootstrap code, but that's just me. > Also, apart > from your hardware, FreeBSD is quite compatible with the large majority of > PC hardware. We boot directly off of 3ware ATA RAID controllers where I > work, so I really think your claims are rather overstated. Don't forget that neither 3ware nor promise list FreeBSD as a supported operating system, both are equally listed in FreeBSDs hardware list, there's no indication that booting for one of them doesn't work but that it's supposed to work on the other. Neither does the documentation of boot2 or loader explain the possible issue so as to buy possible buyers. It would really be nice if this boot-compatiblity/incompatiblity information would be documented somehwere. Like in pst(4) and boot(8). Cheers Toerless