Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 18:22:27 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: brett@lariat.org (Brett Glass) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com (Terry Lambert), /dev/null@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Here is what IBM thinks about using FreeBSD on their newer Message-ID: <200011291822.LAA19741@usr08.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20001129104503.049744e0@localhost> from "Brett Glass" at Nov 29, 2000 10:47:23 AM
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> >I think this presumes that the HD is examined at boot time, > >instead of stopping once the system sees a bootable CDROM, > >which is the normal case when doing a recovery. > > If the problem is a BIOS that can't handle a FreeBSD boot > sector, perhaps a special boot sector with replacement hard > disk BIOS code -- such as the one included in OnTrack Disk > Manager -- would serve as a workaround. The problem > could also be that the laptop has a suspend/resume feature > that's looking for a special partition or DOS file and not > finding it. There are a lot of problems with the FreeBSD bootblocks in "Dangerously Dedicated" mode: 1) Causes divide-by-zero because of invalid/unexpected DOS partition table data, predominantly in a number of SCSI controller BIOS'. 2) Doesn't pass all 7 common boot-sector validation tests. 3) Looks like a boot-sector virus to some BIOS'. 4) Partition type 165 is not recognized by the BIOS in some IBM laptops, resulting in a "suspend to disk" overwriting the initial part of the FreeBSD disklabel and "partition" 'a' with suspend data, trashing it. These are just the immediate, and not incidental or consequential problems. The last one is resolved for Linux in recent BIOS by adding the Linux partition number to the exclusion list, along with the Windows and OS/2 exclusions. Technically, this would be better resolved by using an _inclusion_ list, containing only the permissable suspend partition ID. It can also be worked around in FreeBSD by ensuring that the FreeBSD partition is not the first one, and that the DOS partition table is intact, with a FAT/VFAT partition at the start, and the suspend area unadulterated, before the FreeBSD partition in the DOS table. As you note, the OnTrack Disk Manager code does not have the problem (personally, I use Boot Magic, which comes with Partition Magic Pro from Power Quest Software). I even hacked up a little daemon head bitmap so that it shows a deamon as the boot icon image; I've had less luck replacing the background bitmap, but it never struck me as being critical, anyway... Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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