5 messages in org.freebsd.freebsd-mobileRe: Problems running NetBSD or OpenBS...| From | Sent On | Attachments |
|---|---|---|
| Greg Lehey | Nov 29, 2000 2:35 pm | |
| Frank van der Linden | Nov 29, 2000 2:38 pm | |
| Marc Espie | Nov 29, 2000 4:33 pm | |
| Peter Wemm | Nov 29, 2000 8:57 pm | |
| Greg Lehey | Nov 29, 2000 9:16 pm |
| Subject: | Re: Problems running NetBSD or OpenBSD on newer IBM laptops? | |
|---|---|---|
| From: | Greg Lehey (gr...@lemis.com) | |
| Date: | Nov 29, 2000 9:16:52 pm | |
| List: | org.freebsd.freebsd-mobile | |
On Wednesday, 29 November 2000 at 20:58:16 -0800, Peter Wemm wrote:
Frank van der Linden wrote:
On Thu, Nov 30, 2000 at 09:05:55AM +1030, Greg Lehey wrote:
In the last couple of days we've been having a discussion in the FreeBSD mobile list about a bug in newer IBM laptops. See http://www.pc.ibm.com/qtechinfo/MIGR-4QHLS4.html for more details. Basically, it seems that the IBM BIOS uses partition type 165 for its own purposes, and goes crazy if it doesn't find what it wants in it:
If type 165 is the problem, then NetBSD will certainly not have that problem, since it uses 169 these days.
I half wonder if we should make FreeBSD recognize a secondary partition type as well, just in case. For example, our fdisk.c suggests that 168 (0xA8) and 175 (0xAF) are free.. Maybe one of them? Then we can try using the alternate on the wretched thinkpads (sysinstall will let the user put in any partition type they want).
Well, in fact I just blew away my laptop with some experiments :-(
Here's what I discovered:
1. FreeBSD will happily mount FreeBSD partitions in NetBSD or OpenBSD slices. It's just the boot which silently ignores them and boots from the first FreeBSD partition it finds, and complains if it can't find one. Correct me if I misunderstand, but I think the process is something like this:
a. Boot manager prompts:
F1: Microsoft F2: FreeBSD F3: OpenBSD F4: NetBSD
b. Press F3 or F4. Boot manager goes looking for the boot block on this slice and loads it.
c. The boot block goes and looks at the slice, says "nah! That's not FreeBSD", finds slice 2 and boots it.
Is this reasonable? In that case, we just need to change the boot.
2. Don't use /stand/sysinstall's partition manager to rewrite the partition type of a partition you care about. It seems to create an empty partition table as well. Use fdisk(8) instead.
Greg
-- Finger gr...@lemis.com for PGP public key See complete headers for address and phone numbers
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majo...@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-mobile" in the body of the message