Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 19:46:59 +0200 (SAST) From: Robert Nordier <rnordier@nordier.com> To: bde@zeta.org.au (Bruce Evans) Cc: rnordier@nordier.com, brian@Awfulhak.org, cvs-all@FreeBSD.org, cvs-committers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/i386/boot/biosboot table.c Message-ID: <199905251747.TAA14745@ceia.nordier.com> In-Reply-To: <199905251354.XAA02838@godzilla.zeta.org.au> from Bruce Evans at "May 25, 1999 11:54:25 pm"
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> >Quite seriously, though (and with no particular irony implied), > >I'm curious to know why you regard the boot2 stuff as "more hackish". > > I meant mainly the non-asm parts. boot2 has a lower density of comments, > and doesn't attempt to keep machine-independent parts in separate > modules. The emphasis on (selected aspects of) form over functionality seems a bit quixotic, at least in context; but I can certainly address this, now it's been raised as an issue. > >At least one practical feature of the new boot blocks is that they > >are BIOS geometry-independent, which is certainly useful. And they > >certain appear to have fewer bugs: though I may just be pressing the > >wrong buttons. > > I think they fail on older systems instead of newer ones. > Unfortuntely I no longer have my 1987 1.6MB system to test on :-). It > would fail in boot1 for ah = 8; int 0x13. I'm not sure how recently you tried the code: up to boot1.s 1.5, boot2.c 1.16 there were problems related to use of 32-bit instructions which would have caused problems with certain BIOSes. Though, if anyone is having reproducible problems, please let me know. The only difficulty with incompatibility issues is getting people to report them, either in detail or at all: fixes are generally obvious. Anyone else with reasons to keep the /sys/i386/boot/* (except netboot) code around any longer? -- Robert Nordier To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe cvs-all" in the body of the message
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