From owner-freebsd-ia64 Tue Mar 6 16:49: 7 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-ia64@freebsd.org Received: from anchor-post-31.mail.demon.net (anchor-post-31.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.89]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7819737B718 for ; Tue, 6 Mar 2001 16:49:03 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dfr@nlsystems.com) Received: from [62.49.251.130] (helo=herring.nlsystems.com) by anchor-post-31.mail.demon.net with esmtp (Exim 2.12 #1) id 14aS7C-0006gq-0V; Wed, 7 Mar 2001 00:47:42 +0000 Received: from salmon.nlsystems.com (salmon [10.0.0.3]) by herring.nlsystems.com (8.11.2/8.11.2) with ESMTP id f270kQ725384; Wed, 7 Mar 2001 00:46:26 GMT (envelope-from dfr@nlsystems.com) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 00:46:26 +0000 (GMT) From: Doug Rabson To: "Kenneth D. Merry" Cc: Subject: Re: Porting the loader In-Reply-To: <20010306163606.A26628@panzer.kdm.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-ia64@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Tue, 6 Mar 2001, Kenneth D. Merry wrote: > On Tue, Mar 06, 2001 at 20:34:57 +0000, Doug Rabson wrote: > > Since nothing seemed to be happening here (hope I'm not stepping on any > > toes), I decided to start porting the loader. I now have the thing at the > > stage where it initialises the console and memory allocator and actually > > reaches the 'ok' prompt. Can't do much else with it yet though :-). > > > > If anyone is interested, I can send the source. I can't commit it just yet > > since I'm using some Intel header files and I'm waiting for clarification > > on the license for them. > > > > I suppose I'll have to buy an LS120 drive next since that seems to be the > > only way of getting information onto the beast. Fortunately the loader > > fits easily on a normal floppy. > > Another way to do it would be to install Linux on there and use a DOS > partition. I've been seriously considering it. > > Both SuSE and RedHat use a DOS partition as the place where they put their > kernels, etc. It's mounted under /boot for SuSE and /boot/efi for RedHat > if you use the default install. > > So you can just ftp stuff over and copy it up to the dos partition. EFI > knows how to read dos partitions, so you can just do something like: > > fs0: > loader > > (assuming it's called loader.efi) > > Any idea whether FreeBSD will have to use the same scheme of having a DOS > partition in order to run the loader? I think we will have to do this since the only filesystem which the EFI firmware understands is FAT and we rely on the firmware to load the first stage loader. I imagine that on an ia64 system the directory /boot will need to be a separate DOS filesystem. -- Doug Rabson Mail: dfr@nlsystems.com Phone: +44 20 8348 6160 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-ia64" in the body of the message