Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 13:16:40 +0200 (SAST) From: Robert Nordier <rnordier@nordier.com> To: peter@netplex.com.au (Peter Wemm) Cc: dhw@whistle.com (David Wolfskill), nate@yogotech.com, mobile@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Here is what IBM thinks about using FreeBSD on their newer Thinkpads Message-ID: <200011301116.eAUBGeC02119@nordier.com> In-Reply-To: <200011301036.eAUAatD94336@mobile.wemm.org> from "Peter Wemm" at Nov 30, 2000 02:36:55 AM
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Peter Wemm wrote: > Peter Wemm wrote: > > David Wolfskill wrote: > > > >From: Nate Williams <nate@yogotech.com> > > > >Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 10:48:34 -0700 (MST) > > > > > > >> >Didn't Robert shrink it back to 1 sector after 4.1 was released? It > > > >> >would be interesting to know if the 'smaller' bootblock worked as well. > > > > > > >> No; jhb found that there was a bug in the boot0 code & fixed it. My > > > >> archived mail shows that most of the work occurred on 04 August. > > > > > > >Hmm, the log message I'm reading says: > > > > > > > date: 2000/10/02 17:30:22; author: rnordier; state: Exp; lines: +77 - > 15 > > 1 > > > > Go back to occupying just a single sector, reverting r1.17 - r1.20. > > > >[SNIP > > > > > > Right; I expressed myself poorly: what I meant by the above is that the > > > thing that fixed the boot-hang (back in August) was not a change in the > > > size of boot0, but jhb locating & fixing a bug. (I meant no slight to > > > either jhb or rnordier; I hope that's clear.) > > > > This has nothing to do with the problem at hand. We had a thinkpad > > something-20 belonging to a friend of a friend. The bios would lock up with > > *any* FreeBSD installed all the way back to 2.2.5. ie: 2.2.x, 3.x, 4,x and > > 5.x *ALL* didn't work. > > > > ie: bootblocks are not relevant. > > > > > > > > >This is the last commit made to the boot0 code for i386. Ahh, but this > > > >code didn't make it back into FreeBSD 4.X, so 4.2 *might* still be > > > >succeptible if this is a 2-sector boot0 bug. > > > > > > True, though other evidence (in this thread) indicates that at least > > > part of the problem occurs even if a single sector is all that is used. > > > > The bios locks up regardless of which bootblock are used.. 1k, 0.5k, old 3.x, > > or a.out 2.x bootblocks. It simply does not like the partitioning. > > > > Somebody else has suggested that the secret to making FreeBSD work on this > > laptop is to have windows set up on the first slice and part of the disk, and > > set up and *use* suspend-to-FAT32 *before* installing freebsd. > > > > However, if you do this, you windows partition must be less than 8GB as the > > 0.5k bootblocks are not able to boot from above-8G. ie: only 4.x is > > compatable. If rnordier backs this feature out of 4.x too, then 4.x will > > be broken as well because he has not replaced the functionality that he > > destroyed (ie: automatic above-8G support). > > This was uncalled for. I apologize to Robert for going over the top here. > > On further reading of the mailing list (buried in my mailbox with 7197 > other as-yet unread messages), I see that Robert has already pointed out > that the actual bootblocks are likely to have nothing to do with it. > I should not have let my frustration at IBM be misdirected at another > developer who was an innocent bystander. > > I should be the last one to complain about missing features of > works-in-progress considering how many loose ends I am presently > implicated in. Thanks, Peter. For my part I acknowledge that your concerns about above-8G installations are valid and need addressing. I'll see if I can get something done about this in the next week or so. -- Robert Nordier rnordier@nordier.com rnordier@FreeBSD.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-mobile" in the body of the message
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