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Date:      Wed, 7 Mar 2001 12:01:14 +0000 (GMT)
From:      Doug Rabson <dfr@nlsystems.com>
To:        Mike Smith <msmith@freebsd.org>
Cc:        "Kenneth D. Merry" <ken@kdm.org>, <ia64@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: Porting the loader 
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.33.0103071157050.28771-100000@herring.nlsystems.com>
In-Reply-To: <200103070046.f270kVL02847@mass.dis.org>

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On Tue, 6 Mar 2001, Mike Smith wrote:

> >
> > Any idea whether FreeBSD will have to use the same scheme of having a DOS
> > partition in order to run the loader?
>
> You have to have a FAT partition; that's required by EFI.  My initial
> proposal was to have a boot2 equivalent living there, so that the loader
> itself was still in the UFS filesystem.

One interesting possibility would be to write an EFI driver for the UFS
filesystem. This interface could automatically be added to any suitably
typed partitions found by the firmware and would make it possible for the
firmware to load files right out of the booting filesystem.

One would still need a FAT partition to hold the UFS driver, unless Intel
could be convinced to include it in the firmware itself (not terribly
likely, I guess).

-- 
Doug Rabson				Mail:  dfr@nlsystems.com
					Phone: +44 20 8348 6160



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