On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 02:10:20AM -0700, Bogdan wrote: > > * The BIOS can often only read from relatively near the start of the > > disk, and core.img must be readable by the BIOS. If some other > > operating system is already installed - the common dual-boot case, > > and the case where this problem is overwhelmingly most likely to > > matter - it's likely to occupy a large stretch of partitioned space > > right after the boot track. > > Are you talking about the conventional INT 13h interface?
Yes, which is the only thing that will fit into the boot sector which needs to read everything else. > > * The MBR format has so many irritating restrictions on primary > > partitions that the more partitions an operating system needs to > > create by default, the more stress we put on partitioning > > algorithms. (Most people don't notice any of this until they try to > > install on a machine whose OEM helpfully created three or four > > primary partitions already.) > > Only one of the 4 primary partitions can be active. So, turn whatever is not > needed into an extended partition. What tools with this screw over? Or, are > we > talking about OSes that don't support extended partitions here? It rather depends on the pattern of free space that's available; consider for example the case where there's already a logical partition but there is another primary partition between it and the space you actually want to use. The precise details are off-topic for this list, though. -- Colin Watson [cjwat...@ubuntu.com] _______________________________________________ Grub-devel mailing list Grub-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
