Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 23:10:23 +0200 (SAST) From: Robert Nordier <rnordier@nordier.com> To: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> Cc: Robert Nordier <rnordier@FreeBSD.org>, cvs-all@FreeBSD.org, cvs-committers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/boot/i386/boot0 Makefile boot0.s Message-ID: <200010022110.XAA21513@c2-dbn-94.dial-up.net> In-Reply-To: <XFMail.001002125459.jhb@FreeBSD.org> "from John Baldwin at Oct 2, 2000 12:54:59 pm"
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John Baldwin wrote: > On 02-Oct-00 Robert Nordier wrote: > > rnordier 2000/10/02 10:30:22 PDT > > > > Modified files: > > sys/boot/i386/boot0 Makefile boot0.s > > Log: > > Go back to occupying just a single sector, reverting r1.17 - r1.20. > > Taking over the sector following the MBR causes problems on some > > machines, and the actual gains are fairly small in terms of how > > the space is presently used. > > Err, being able to boot past the 1024 cylinder boundary automagically and > during install is a rather sizable gain I should think. It even ended up > as a bullet on the back of the 4.1 CD set. :-( I agree that automagical installation support is a feature, but I don't believe that boot0 has to be bloated to twice the size, and has to become prone to mysterious failures in order to achieve this. > I do know of some people that were having some issues, and was planning to > work up some test boot0's to narrow down where it was hanging when I got > back from my short vacation on Thursday. > > > Since we need a number of further features (eg. handling extended > > partitions) that can't be readily accommodated in the basic boot0 > > design anyway, rather choose to implement the additional stuff > > separately and concentrate on compatibility rather than features > > here. > > Actually, I had made it simple enough that all you had to do was bump > NUM_SECTORS and the rest took care of itself. You could then add > arbitrary extra code onto the end after the first sector, up to a > reasonable maximum of 16 sectors. This misses the point; I was referring to the (basic) boot0 design, NUM_SECTORS is a minor implementation detail. > > We just defeated the 1024 cylinder problem, don't bring it back. :-( There wasn't a 1024 cylinder problem; at worst there was a once-off 1024 cylinder inconvenience during installation. And we didn't "defeat" anything; instead of clear and obvious failures which (given EDD support) could be corrected by toggling a setting with boot0cfg(8), we changed to obscure failures that had to be addressed by having to use another boot manager, because the code was no longer idiomatic and no longer well-behaved. -- Robert Nordier rnordier@nordier.com rnordier@FreeBSD.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe cvs-all" in the body of the message
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