From owner-freebsd-current Wed Jan 6 15:15:39 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id PAA20524 for freebsd-current-outgoing; Wed, 6 Jan 1999 15:15:39 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from ceia.nordier.com (m1-54-dbn.dial-up.net [196.34.155.54]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id PAA20518 for ; Wed, 6 Jan 1999 15:15:35 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from rnordier@nordier.com) Received: (from rnordier@localhost) by ceia.nordier.com (8.8.7/8.6.12) id AAA03048; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 00:27:41 +0200 (SAT) From: Robert Nordier Message-Id: <199901062227.AAA03048@ceia.nordier.com> Subject: Re: new boot loader ... documentation In-Reply-To: from "Robert V. Baron" at "Jan 6, 99 02:24:36 pm" To: rvb@cs.cmu.edu (Robert V. Baron) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 00:27:39 +0200 (SAT) Cc: rnordier@nordier.com, dcs@newsguy.com, mike@smith.net.au, current@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL31 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Robert V. Baron wrote: > Robert Nordier writes: > > > Daniel C. Sobral wrote: > > > > The "new boot blocks" tutorial limits itself to the "boot blocks": > > that is, the hidden first and second stages of the bootstrap which > > are written to the disk by disklabel(8). > > What would be equally interesting is a tutorial/overview on btxld, > btxldr, and btx. How full an OS is btx? The FreeBSD version in use at the moment is extremely minimalist. Essentially, everything that the new boot code can do without isn't there. The main constraint is the 8K of disk space available to the bootblocks, as the same version of btx hosts both the second and third stages of the bootstrap. However, a more capable version, that can (primitively) support its own edit/assemble/link development cycle, is waiting in the wings; and I guess /boot/loader may need additional facilities at some stage. -- Robert Nordier To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message