2009/6/17 Rick C. Petty <rick-freebsd2...@kiwi-computer.com>: > I read somewhere that there isn't enough space in the boot2 loader to put > such logic. You're only guaranteed 15 512-byte sectors or 7680 bytes, if > you use any UFS partition. It's pretty tight; I think you will find it > difficult to insert another file system in there, especially one as > complicated as msdos. libstand is 223 KB, so it's not as trivial as you > think. > > Theoretically it would be possible: for example, if you're willing to set > aside a separate partition you would have as much room as you want. Or if > you put it at the front of a UFS partition, you have just under 256 KB of > room since our UFS code will search for the superblock at a byte offset of > 262144, but there aren't any knobs to newfs so you'd have to hack it > together. Take a look at /usr/src/sys/boot/i386/boot2/ for starters.
This is why I pointed out the NetBSD DOS bootloader stuff. In effect, you could "just" boot a FreeBSD install by teaching the NetBSD bootloader and loader(8) enough about each other to initialise loader; loader then has much more memory to play with understanding multiple filesystems and slicing/labelling methods. Boot0, boot1, boot2 wouldn't even be involved. Adrian _______________________________________________ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
