From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Feb 23 16:33:25 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C3EFE1065679; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:33:25 +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 948B68FC1E; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:33:25 +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 2F47A46B0C; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 11:33:25 -0500 (EST) Received: from jhbbsd.localnet (unknown [209.249.190.10]) by bigwig.baldwin.cx (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 564978A009; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 11:33:24 -0500 (EST) From: John Baldwin To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 11:33:10 -0500 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.5 (FreeBSD/7.4-CBSD-20110107; KDE/4.4.5; amd64; ; ) References: <4D35CFFB.3010302@freebsd.org> <20110222205741.GA34103@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> <4D65328D.3050709@jrv.org> In-Reply-To: <4D65328D.3050709@jrv.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201102231133.10571.jhb@freebsd.org> X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.6 (bigwig.baldwin.cx); Wed, 23 Feb 2011 11:33:24 -0500 (EST) X-Virus-Scanned: clamav-milter 0.96.3 at bigwig.baldwin.cx X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.5 required=4.2 tests=BAYES_00,MAY_BE_FORGED, RDNS_DYNAMIC autolearn=no version=3.3.1 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.1 (2010-03-16) on bigwig.baldwin.cx Cc: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org, "James R. Van Artsdalen" , Peter Jeremy , freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:33:25 -0000 On Wednesday, February 23, 2011 11:15:09 am James R. Van Artsdalen wrote: > On 2/22/2011 2:57 PM, Peter Jeremy wrote: > > When that does come, it will probably be driven by BIOS and hardware > > vendors dropping support for MBR. > > MBR is not a BIOS concept. MBR is an OS thing. The BIOS does not care > or know what kind of partitioning you use, or if you partition at all. That is mostly true. There are some SCSI BIOSes that would examine the MBR and infer what C/H/S geometry the OS was expecting from the MBR. The original dedicated disk dummy MBR triggered a divide by zero in one of these BIOS ROMs. > A GPT disk with FreeBSD should boot fine on a quarter-century-old IBM > PC/AT, until FreeBSD's "don't support 80286" message. Even a GPT has a legacy MBR (the PMBR) at the front of the disk (it marks the entire disk as in use by a special 0xee partition or some such). -- John Baldwin