Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 01:10:09 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: fclift@verio.net (Fred Clift) Cc: opentrax@email.com, tlambert@primenet.com, stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated) Message-ID: <200011240110.SAA05483@usr06.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0011231005050.1914-100000@vespa.orem.iserver.com> from "Fred Clift" at Nov 23, 2000 10:24:28 AM
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> > > o An increasing number of BIOS will divide by 0 when they > > > are attempting to implement LBA addressing. These > > > systems simply _can not boot_, given FreeBSD's fake DOS > > > partition table in its disklabel > > again, 30 seconds in fdisk fixes this This can be fixed, but hasn't been. > > > o The FreeBSD fake DOS partition table does not pass a > > > number BIOS-based self-consistency checks (it needs to > > > be fixed -- feel free to bell the cat), and so systems > > > which use these checks in the BIOS to protect against > > > boot sector virus infestation _can not boot_. > > again, 30 seconds in fdisk fixes this I don't agree with this one. There is a checksum that is not valid against the FreeBSD created partition tablem regardless of what you do with FreeBSD fdisk. > Several other things were mentioned that relate to dedicateds not playing > well with other operating systems and utilities. The response to all of > these is "Yes, but by definition, a 'dedicated' install is not required > to interoperate with other systems since it is the only OS on the > disk. (yes, multiple disks, a boot manager, etc but when I think > dedicated, I dont think dual boot to two disks -- I think -- this is my > FreeBSD web/file/print/etc server, and so why would I want to dual-boot? I have yet to see a reasonable justification as to why a DOS partition table and MBR (or boot manager) causes any problems that can't be overcome. The only valid reasons I have seen put forth have come from my own postings about historical hardware, and they all have workarounds. Let me add a third in the "pro" column (I'm 3 for 3 on being the source of "pro" arguments, with this one): o If you have a disk which exceeds the allowable C/H/S values with its physical geometry, and neither the disk itself, nor the controller, fictionalizes the geometry, the DOS partition table can not describe the full disk in C/H/S terms, and some space will not be usable. The refutation of this one is rather simple: the OS should use the 32 bit sector offset and 32 bit sector count, instead of the C/H/S values, if these two values are non-zero. This is described in numerous documents written about the DOS partition table, and is even part of the PReP standard for PPC based systems. (I'm 3 for 3 on refuting them, too). 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-stable" in the body of the message
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