From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Aug 16 00:36:47 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CDE1E106564A for ; Tue, 16 Aug 2011 00:36:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kob6558@gmail.com) Received: from mail-yi0-f54.google.com (mail-yi0-f54.google.com [209.85.218.54]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8E5628FC12 for ; Tue, 16 Aug 2011 00:36:47 +0000 (UTC) Received: by yib19 with SMTP id 19so4017104yib.13 for ; Mon, 15 Aug 2011 17:36:46 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=x2ncZz/CexHzeXtiwuWIGJ7e0cJIcN82nV1g7Ii+7JI=; b=xLChC7QFPpCjLZnnjGoqaWX7/pbtZD+AqdUOyUGNUhLZDTFYvyT89hLuhd19MAOY2B ycAuBXwd2zPnZJztn+S06sGLBvapq8JhGXF1ax8IfuzvUQS7Zpjn3EPtQSsinh3CGs8b sOnNOc06eFJnFmnWSJoSDuBWjoF2aO6K5m3+g= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.150.215.2 with SMTP id n2mr5388754ybg.152.1313455006792; Mon, 15 Aug 2011 17:36:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.151.98.3 with HTTP; Mon, 15 Aug 2011 17:36:46 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <4E49430D.10609@FreeBSD.org> References: <4E49430D.10609@FreeBSD.org> Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 17:36:46 -0700 Message-ID: From: Kevin Oberman To: "Andrey V. Elsukov" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Cc: "freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Stable" Subject: Re: GPT boot blocks, booting and booteasy X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 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, 16 Aug 2011 00:36:47 -0000 2011/8/15 Andrey V. Elsukov : > On 10.08.2011 07:12, Kevin Oberman wrote: >> I have /boot/pmbr loaded into the PMBR and gptboot into the >> freebsd-boot partition. I'll >> admit that I did this by rote and don't understand how these two files >> interact with the >> UEFI BIOS to get the loader started. I'm not really certain that I >> even need both. >> >> Is it possible to build a "custom" booteasy boot system with boot0cfg >> or some other tool >> so I can select d ifferent bootable partition or my other disk which >> is sliced in the traditional >> fashion? Can anyone point me to any information on how the boot >> process works with GPT? > > PMBR is a simple variant of MBR which does know enough to parse GPT > partition table and how to load bootcode from the "freebsd-boot" > partition. Then gptboot does search bootable UFS partition. > At this time we do not have any =A0bootcodes like booteasy for GPT. > But you can try to use bootme and bootonce GPT attributes (see > gpart(8)). Also you can use grub boot loader. Andrey, Thanks for the response. The 'bootme' and 'bootonce' attributes look to sol= ve some issues. Looks like I might need to have a bios-boot partition to use g= rub, but I may give it a shot. On the whole, the advantages of GPT are such that= I would love to see FreeBSD move to make it the standard partitioning scheme, though I understand this will not be easy until/unless Windows develops ful= l GPT support. Just having more than 4 partitions as opposed to having to sub-partition a = real partition (slice) is very nice. --=20 R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer - Retired E-mail: kob6558@gmail.com