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Date:      Mon, 24 Jul 2000 11:44:36 -0700 (MST)
From:      "Chad R. Larson" <chad@DCFinc.com>
To:        hausen@punkt.de (Patrick M. Hausen)
Cc:        mi@aldan.algebra.com, jhb@pike.osd.bsdi.com, stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: No /boot/loader (dangerously dedicated)
Message-ID:  <200007241844.LAA14420@freeway.dcfinc.com>
In-Reply-To: <200007231444.QAA94743@hugo10.ka.punkt.de> from "Patrick M. Hausen" at "Jul 23, 0 04:44:56 pm"

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As I recall, Patrick M. Hausen wrote:
> Folks, gemoetries are for brain damaged PC operating systems.
> All the box needs to boot is a proper MBR. BIOSes that
> don't boot from a dedicated disk are _broken_.

I agree.

Which is not to say there aren't some =broken= BIOSs out there.
Earlier Compaq systems wouldn't boot unless the disk had a special
signature in the boot records (probably a cheezy way to force you to
buy replacement disks from Compaq.

Newer Compaqs no longer refuse to boot, but the BIOS does have
special support for a special diagnostic partition that will boot if
you hit F10 right after the RAM check.

Which is why, if I have the choice, I refuse to buy Compaq hardware.

So, I think leaving things the way they have been (letting the
administrator decide at installation time) with regard to
"dangerously dedicated" is the way to go.  Perhaps with a little
more verbose warning about "don't try this unless you know what
you're doing" thrown in.

	-crl
--
Chad R. Larson (CRL15)   602-953-1392   Brother, can you paradigm?
chad@dcfinc.com         chad@larsons.org          larson1@home.net   
DCF, Inc. - 14623 North 49th Place, Scottsdale, Arizona 85254-2207


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