From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 12 07:54:29 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [8.8.178.115]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AC4F95D5 for ; Tue, 12 Feb 2013 07:54:29 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from alexoz66@gmail.com) Received: from mail-ea0-f170.google.com (mail-ea0-f170.google.com [209.85.215.170]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3B0E7A9B for ; Tue, 12 Feb 2013 07:54:28 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-ea0-f170.google.com with SMTP id a11so18702eaa.1 for ; Mon, 11 Feb 2013 23:54:28 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=x-received:message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:cc :subject:references:in-reply-to:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=5oD7je/Gbk0Of+3tsSTYYSw+mO96DmwguOmAoFlqwO8=; b=sF7hJLxKp+j40G0PNpBJtejYl0If/dU4ddu40mHpdHKwRDUn3i4aceKwKfyvBHNt0Q D0xjQeRN6k86xzYduaDXMZinNJTHY5U5zEAkxRSUSvsAMYG9agBPz2evHoaKzLfMC9AO +3KFfdbtBFDIKIO9siqVKY2x6E4y3rILi4xSsm8MKBkN+yJMUmoygW5Ng4woY8JfXjxi 4Tnip9AT6DQnnBZU6vfPHSG2oXnvr3/CFPahEtKioPzRRpE5M0BGO3iyFN2nva+wai71 DRlQ7woEgnNR69aO5l8aPHDvj6lEWYcysGxLi4kgz5k//LT1OpG7ylH1YVfNu+P66cwp rh3Q== X-Received: by 10.14.224.137 with SMTP id x9mr59959365eep.11.1360655667271; Mon, 11 Feb 2013 23:54:27 -0800 (PST) Received: from alexoz.noc.duth.gr ([2001:648:2e80:10:be5f:f4ff:fe42:7f4d]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id j46sm63032992eeo.3.2013.02.11.23.54.26 (version=TLSv1 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA bits=128/128); Mon, 11 Feb 2013 23:54:26 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <5119F531.7030707@gmail.com> Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2013 09:54:25 +0200 From: "John Alex." User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130109 Thunderbird/17.0.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: kpneal@pobox.com Subject: Re: Installing FreeBSD 9.1 amd64 on IBM x3550 M3 References: <20130211112352.GA84742@noc.ntua.gr> <20130211191145.2b96ba8f@X220.ovitrap.com> <51193151.2090204@noc.ntua.gr> <20130212005913.GA33927@neutralgood.org> In-Reply-To: <20130212005913.GA33927@neutralgood.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2013 07:54:29 -0000 On 02/12/2013 02:59 AM, kpneal@pobox.com wrote: > On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 11:43:55AM -0800, Kevin Oberman wrote: >> On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 9:58 AM, Panagiotis Christias >> wrote: >>> >>> I suppose trying an 8.3 installation would be the easiest way to use MBR >>> instead of GPT, right; >> >> That would do it, but 9.1 is perfectly happy doing MBR. It's just not >> the default. >> >> Seems like many BIOSes assume that GPT=uEFI. Clearly this is silly, but... >> >> I know Lenovo laptops have this problem and it is VERY annoying. I run >> FreeBSD on a GPT disk on my ThinkPad, but I have booteasy installed on >> an MBR disk (which contains W7) and my BIOS is set to boot from that >> disk.BootEasy then will boot up the GPT disk with FreeBSD. > > Doesn't GPT start with an MBR covering the entire disk? How feasible would > it be to tweak that MBR so that a boot partition was listed in it? Say, a > partition holding the root filesystem could be listed in both the GPT and > MBR style. Then a disk could be booted with MBR or GPT at the whim of the > firmware. > > I agree that this BIOS=MBR/UEFI=GPT assumption is pure rubbish. I've got > machines with this documented restriction and I'd love a way around it. > It is feasible, it's known as a hybrid MBR. On Linux I've accomplished this using the gdisk utility, I don't know how it can be done on FreeBSD though. I had to use this ugly solution in order to install windows 8 on a GPT disk on a pc without UEFI support.