From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sat, 11 Jan 2003 10:55:30 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sat, 11 Jan 2003 10:55:29 -0500 Received: from harpo.it.uu.se ([130.238.12.34]:10148 "EHLO harpo.it.uu.se") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Sat, 11 Jan 2003 10:55:29 -0500 Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 17:03:51 +0100 (MET) From: Mikael Pettersson Message-Id: <200301111603.RAA06278@harpo.it.uu.se> To: hpa@zytor.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Killing off the boot sector (was: [STATUS 2.5] January 8, 2002) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On 8 Jan 2003 12:03:27 -0800, H. Peter Anvin wrote: >Can we *please* kill off the stupid in-kernel boot sector? The >probing method it uses to determine geometry is unreliable (doesn't >work on anything but true legacy floppies, not IDE, not USB, not >firewire); it generates these kinds of requests; doesn't handle >large-size kernels; hard-codes the use of address 0x90000 which isn't >available on all machines; and overall promotes what's fundamentally >bad practice. > >People keep asking what's the harm in keeping it, and the answer is, >quite simply: "because people continue to try to use it." While I have no particular affection for the in-kernel boot loader, I do care about being able to test new kernels with 'make bzdisk' as a regular user, using raw (no file system) floppies. Last time I checked, LILO required both a file system and root privs (for FIBMAP). Would syslinux work better? /Mikael