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Date:      Tue, 28 Jun 2011 04:10:06 +0200
From:      Gyrd Thane Lange <gyrd-se@thanelange.no>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Cc:        doug@safeport.com, perryh@pluto.rain.com
Subject:   Re: Dual Boot 8.2 and Windows 7
Message-ID:  <20110628041006.256ac7bf@parvati.thanelange.no>
In-Reply-To: <20110628015216.386bf8c6@parvati.thanelange.no>
References:  <alpine.BSF.2.00.1106231919320.83085@oceanpt.safeport.com> <D7EC3198-B917-4ACB-9BC2-ACE6D5569C07@my.gd> <4D7F86D5012E084A@> <alpine.BSF.2.00.1106240933580.83085@oceanpt.safeport.com> <4e05220e.GBAaOafCcTgMjymv%perryh@pluto.rain.com> <20110626202852.6765f935@parvati.thanelange.no> <4e08b653.f21Zod5W%2BPPBQkwI%perryh@pluto.rain.com> <20110628015216.386bf8c6@parvati.thanelange.no>

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On Tue, 28 Jun 2011 01:52:16 +0200
Gyrd Thane Lange <gyrd-se@thanelange.no> wrote:

> On Mon, 27 Jun 2011 09:56:51 -0700
> perryh@pluto.rain.com wrote:
> 
> > Gyrd Thane Lange <gyrd-se@thanelange.no> wrote:
> > 
> > > On Fri, 24 Jun 2011 16:47:26 -0700
> > > perryh@pluto.rain.com wrote:
> > >
> > > > ... The code in i386/boot2 and
> > > > lib/libstand is written to find the / (or /boot) FS on a
> > > > BSD partition of an fdisk "primary partition" (aka slice),
> > > > or in a GPT partition, and would need additions to handle
> > > > fdisk "extended partitions".
> > >
> > > Some years ago I ran into a similar problem. I ran out of primary
> > > partitions (using MBR-speak) and had to move FreeBSD into an
> > > extended partition.
> > >
> > > Here the simple patch I wrote for the FreeBSD boot loader:
> > > <http://parvati.thanelange.no/freebsd/boot_loader/boot_loader.diff>;
> > > <http://parvati.thanelange.no/freebsd/boot_loader/>;
> > 
> > Any thought of submitting that as a PR?
> 
> I've always meant to submit it as a PR, but found the send-pr(1) too
> daunting. (It is impossible/undesirable for me to have a working mail
> sender on my system and I have not yet found a way for send-pr(1) to
> work in offline mode for delayed sending by a different machine.) I
> suppose I could give the HTML version a try...

<http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=158358>;
kern/158358: [patch] allow /boot/loader to work from an MBR extended
partition

> > > The next challenge is to find a boot manager that will pick up
> > > FreeBSD in an extended partition. For myself I use a self patched
> > > GRUB. (GRUB also nearly worked out of the box, but had a different
> > > problem.)
> > 
> > It makes sense that GRUB would understand "extended partitions"
> > since its roots are in Linux which is often installed in extended
> > partitions.  Ideally FreeBSD should have a native solution, i.e.
> > a version of boot2 that would understand extended partitions.
> > Dunno without trying it if the capability could be added to the
> > existing boot2 without exceeding available space, or if it would
> > need a new variant.
> 
> I agree that would have been more convenient, but since MBR is going
> the way of the dodo I haven't looked that closely into it.
> 
> > > You're welcome to have those patches as well if you need them.
> > 
> > It would be good to get them posted somewhere.  GRUB is not in the
> > FreeBSD tree AFAIK, so send-pr is likely not all that good a method,
> > but perhaps they could be pushed upstream to the GRUB maintainers?
> 
> The problem with GRUB was computing the correct absolute start sector
> of FreeBSD partitions, as in bsdlabel(8), when they resided in
> "extended partitions". More details are available as comments in the
> patch.
> 
> <http://parvati.thanelange.no/freebsd/grub/patch-ufs-in-logical-partition>;
> All that's required is to drop the file into:
> 
>   /usr/ports/sysutils/grub/files/
> 
> and then build the port, install grub, e.t.c.
> 
> I can make a PR for it against the sysutils/grub port. I'll also look
> into how to push it upstream.

I have filed the following PR:
<http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=158362>;
ports/158362: sysutils/grub [patch] allow GRUB to boot FreeBSD from an
extended partition

While doing so I discovered another one with a similar theme.
<http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=ports/152389>;
ports/152389: sysutils/grub and sysutils/grub2 misinterpret disklabels
created with bsdlabel

Gyrd ^_^



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