From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG  Tue May 22 08:51:00 2007
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Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 10:21:47 +0200
From: Arne Schwabe <schwabe@uni-paderborn.de>
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To: Ivan Voras <ivoras@fer.hr>
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Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: GPT boot loader?
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Ivan Voras schrieb:
> Hi!
>
> I've had the opportunity to talk to Adam Martin, Marcel Moolenaar and
> Peter Wemm about making GPT bootable, but not all of them at the same
> time, so I'd like this thread to be the meeting point on the subject.
>
> (Adam and Peter have offered to modify the boot loader chain, but
> differently.)
>
> Summary:
>
> The idea is to replace bsdlabels with GPT. The problem is that GPT is
> intended to be used with EFI and not to be bootable by regular BIOS
> machines. For FreeBSD, there are two distinct cases:
>
> 1. the machine is GPT-only, there are no other MSDOS and bsdlabel partitions
> 2. the machine is dual-boot or has some other need to retain MSDOS
> partitions.
>
> The second case is more convoluted as it means the MBR will hold a
> regular MSDOS partition table, and one of those partitions will hold a
> GPT - which is trivially done with GEOM but completely non-standard.
>   
3. Use the GPT + MBR Format EFI Macs use. It has a normal MBR and a GPT
and the MBR mirrors a subset of the GPT. The most challenging but
conforms with EFI/GPT

Arne