Re: Default MBR boot "manager"

On Nov 11, 2013, at 1:32 PM, Nathan Whitehorn wrote:

> On 11/11/13 15:19, Teske, Devin wrote:
>> Topic: Lenovo Laptops and bsdinstall zfsboot with MBR layout...
>> 
>> Should we do the quick patch to change the default
>> from /boot/boot0 to /boot/mbr:
>> 
>> Index: zfsboot
>> ===================================================================
>> --- zfsboot     (revision 258016)
>> +++ zfsboot     (working copy)
>> _at__at_ -764,7 +764,7 _at__at_ zfs_create_diskpart()
>>                 #
>>                 f_eval_catch $funcname gpart "$GPART_CREATE" mbr \$disk ||
>>                              return $FAILURE
>> -               f_eval_catch $funcname gpart "$GPART_BOOTCODE" /boot/boot0 \
>> +               f_eval_catch $funcname gpart "$GPART_BOOTCODE" /boot/mbr \
>>                              \$disk || return $FAILURE
>> 
>>                 #
>> 
>> That would fix things for Lenovo laptops for the next
>> release until I finish up the bootcode selection menu.
>> I'd like to take my time in making sure Allan and I design
>> a worthy bootcode selection menu.
> 
> This patch looks good (I don't remember why it was boot0 in the first place). I think gpart automatically installs something like /boot/mbr by default, so I'd be interested to know if making the diff purely negative still works.
> 
> On another note, I think we should move away from a selector. Right now, we have three kinds of boot code:
> 1. ZFS boot code
> 2. UFS boot code
> 3. boot0
> 
> Unifying 1 and 2 would help a lot -- I don't know of any reason we need both except for tradition. #3 is probably best done as a post-install config step ("Install FreeBSD boot manager" or something), which also means it works for UFS systems.

Well, I'm sensitive to the fact that sysinstall offered "none" and
even explained why in an F1 dialog that brought up "drives.hlp"
to explain that you might want to keep whatever (alternate) boot
manager you may be using already.

In a proposed selector, the full breadth of options that I was
envisioning was:

GPT + gptboot
GPT + none (use your existing boot manager... syslinux?)
MBR + mbr
MBR + boot0
MBR + none (again, BYOBM)

Hadn't got around to zfsboot yet. Where would that go? at the top?

GPT + zfsboot ?

(and of course, this is x86 specific... I was gleaning from sysinstall
that for systems like pc98, they call it an IPL and there's only two
options... a standard IPL or bring your own boot manager, aka "none").

I imagine that there would be architectures that are like the ol' pc98,
wherein they don't have all these options (is, for example? sparc64
GPT only?)
-- 
Devin

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