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Date:      Mon, 30 Oct 2000 11:28:22 -0800 (PST)
From:      John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>
To:        Matthew Jacob <mjacob@feral.com>
Cc:        Matt Dillon <dillon@earth.backplane.com>, hackers@FreeBSD.org, freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.org, "David O'Brien" <obrien@FreeBSD.org>
Subject:   Re: Really odd "BTX halted" problem booting FreeBSD on VALinux h
Message-ID:  <XFMail.001030112822.jhb@FreeBSD.org>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0010301052180.14689-100000@zeppo.feral.com>

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On 30-Oct-00 Matthew Jacob wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Oct 2000, John Baldwin wrote:
> 
>> 
>> On 30-Oct-00 David O'Brien wrote:
>> > On Fri, Oct 27, 2000 at 01:24:17PM -0700, Matt Dillon wrote:
>> >>     I think that the days of the 'dangerously dedicated partition' are
>> >>     numbered.
>> > 
>> > Not quite.  We don't do slices on the Alpha -- in fact our slice code
>> > royally screws the Alpha users as it isn't nicely layered and thus hard
>> > to avoid.
>> 
>> But dangerously dedicated mode isn't used on the alpha.  All of this
>> stuff is purely x86-specific.  The alpha just uses a disklabel instead
>> of an MBR.  Dangerously dedicated stuffs a disklabel into an MBR along
>> with other ugliness.
> 
> Huh? This must be a semantic issue since alpha uses nothing but 'dangerously
> dedicated'- at least in terms of how to use disklabel to create a usable disk
> on FreeBSD alpha.

It is kind of semantic.  However, on the alpha it is hardly dangerous.  Nor
do we fake a MBR on the alpha (which is what makes it dangerous).  The alpha
architecture doesn't use MBR's, but the PC arch does.  Thus, having a disklabel
on the alpha is normal, having one at the start of a PC disk requires ugly
hacks that break the PC arch, hence the difference.

-- 

John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> -- http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/
PGP Key: http://www.baldwin.cx/~john/pgpkey.asc
"Power Users Use the Power to Serve!"  -  http://www.FreeBSD.org/


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