From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Aug 20 18:48:15 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0C41D16A4CE for ; Fri, 20 Aug 2004 18:48:15 +0000 (GMT) Received: from web.portaone.com (web.portaone.com [195.70.151.35]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5035343D2F for ; Fri, 20 Aug 2004 18:48:14 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from sobomax@portaone.com) Received: from [192.168.0.20] (portacare.portaone.com [195.140.247.242]) (authenticated bits=0) by web.portaone.com (8.12.8p2/8.12.8) with ESMTP id i7KImB1S097952 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Fri, 20 Aug 2004 20:48:12 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from sobomax@portaone.com) Message-ID: <41264764.6050804@portaone.com> Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 21:48:04 +0300 From: Maxim Sobolev Organization: Porta Software Ltd User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.7.3 (Windows/20040803) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: sclements@linkline.com References: <20040820183544.4F2494C@smtp2.linkline.com> In-Reply-To: <20040820183544.4F2494C@smtp2.linkline.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Extending cdboot with options "Press any key to boot from CD" prompt X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 18:48:15 -0000 Samuel Clements wrote: >>>Windows 2000 and later checks for an active partition on HDD first, and >>>display this message if none found. >>> >>>Is it hard to implement? >> >>Don't know for sure. Also you can have several hard drives, another >>CD-ROMs, floppies etc., that set for bootstraping in BIOS after current >>CD-ROM, so that I doubt that such detection is a good idea and worth >>efforts. >> > > > Actually, I believe it checks to see if there is an active partition, then > displays the message. Once the timeout occurs, it tries to boot off of the > found active partition - independent of what is set as the next boot device > in the BIOS. Of course if no active partition is found - no message is > displayed, and the install CD just starts. See above. How it would help if CD is unserted into machine with network boot or machine which boots using some "unsupported" by detection heuristics method (e.g. another CD, floppy, etc)? IMHO, such prompt is useful for interactive CDs to prevent automatic booting when CD is erroneously inserted into headless machines, or when installation is complete and machine can be bootstrapped off HDD. Since it's "for interactive use only", I don't see any problems with "Press any key to boot from CD" prompt in all cases, regardless of the absence or presence of active partition on HDD. It's assumed that there is an operator in front of the machine's console, who can press the key when prompted. If there is no such person, there is no point to boot off this CD at all in the first place due to its "interactiveness". -Maxim