Re: Current laptop issues with 2.2.5

[Randolph Chung <tausq@debian.org>]

Hi,

> In bootconfig.c, dbootstrap uses "/sbin/install-mbr <boot device>" command.
> And the default boot partition for mbr is the "active" primary partition 
> in that boot device.

right. i'm not sure if you were just agreeing with me, or if i'm missing
some additional point you are trying to make though. sorry if it's the
latter....

> # The warning message is shown when user selects "No" at that prompt.
> # "You have selected not to boot Debian as the default. ..."

I just added this yesterday.

> But this default mbr/lilo combination of Debian is not well known 
> even for current Debian users, so maybe adding more detail information
> is good thing, I think.

Suggestions on where to put this info?

> I have not read that report, but make_bootable() in bootcofig.c has
> the following lines:
> 
>        yesNoBox(_("With your current configuration, LILO will try to boot "
>                   "from a disk that is not your first IDE or SCSI disk. "
>                   "It's possible that your BIOS doesn't support that.\n\n"
>                   "Do you want to install LILO anyway?"), _("Problem")))
>    && (! is_first_scsi(Root) || ! fdisk_find_disk(DEV_HDA) ||
>        yesNoBox(_("With your current configuration, LILO will try to boot "
>                   "from your first SCSI disk, but your system has also a "
>                   "master IDE disk at the primary IDE controller. "
>                   "It's possible that your BIOS doesn't support that.\n\n"
>                   "Do you want to install LILO anyway?"), _("Problem"))))

This is again new, and only reenabled recently.


> Suggestion: Add the description for mbr/lilo combination to boot up
> the Debian system before these messages, and replace the word "LILO" 
> with "mbr" in the messages above. How do you think ?

Perhaps Mark can comment on this?

I think we need to do something along the lines of:
If the user selects to install onto /dev/hdb or /dev/sdb or something like
that (not the first device) then it needs to optionally allow the user to
write the mbr and lilo info to /dev/hda (or /dev/sda)... I'm no lilo expert
tho.

randolph
-- 
Debian Developer <tausq@debian.org>
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