Re: boot floppies status report

[Gleb Arshinov <glebster@voyager0.Stanford.EDU>]

>>>>> "Bruce" == Bruce Perens <bruce@pixar.com> writes:

    Bruce> Lilo will install itself on the root _partition_. That's
    Bruce> not what it used to do. It used to install itself on block
    Bruce> 0 of the disk, which is also called the master boot record
    Bruce> or MBR.

	<snip>

    Bruce> At boot time, "mbr" will transfer control to the partition

I take it, what you are referring to as physical partitions is commonly
called primary partitions, ie, /dev/hda[1-4]?  So, essentially this
scheme is determined by "mbr" only being able to boot primary
partitions.  What is the advantage of have "mbr" vs LILO as a
_primary_ bootloader (the one living on MBR)?

    Bruce> By the way, Glebster, are you really using OnTrack Disk
    Bruce> Manager to boot Linux?  If so, you are hereby elected our
    Bruce> Disk Manager expert.

Hehe, ah, can you tell that I've been programming for hmm, about 25
hours with breaks for food only?  No, of course I don't use
DiskMangler, that kind of virus would never get near my hard drive :-)
I am using OS/2's BootManager (hmm, I am not sure if that's what its
called, my brain is not in perfect condition right now :-), but
anyway, the bootloader that comes with OS/2.  I have my root as
/dev/hdb1, however if I put lilo there, BootManager refuses to
recognize the partition as bootable, so I set up LILO on /dev/hdb5.

Anyway, I think that most experienced users will set up LILO
themselves anyway, and probably have a more powerful primary
bootloader than "mbr" (sigh, something that costs $$$ though).  My
only suggestion (perhaps for 1.2) would be to have an option like an
good ol' Slackware had (has?) -- to put LILO on root partition (I
believe it would do it regardless of root being a primary partition or
a logical drive on an extended partion), so that you can set up some
other primary bootloader of your choice to boot that root partition,
which would activate LILO, which would load the kernel ....  I just
think that a lot of people would use this setup.

BTW, Bruce, megathanks to you and other people who make Debian
reality.

Gleb