Re: debian installation issue
On Thu 24 Jun 2021 at 00:07:56 (-0400), Felix Miata wrote:
> David Wright composed on 2021-06-22 10:50 (UTC-0500):
> > On Fri 11 Jun 2021 at 16:57:35 (-0400), Felix Miata wrote:
>
> >> OTOH, putting a bootloader on the MBR of a disk on a PC designed for Windows is a
> >> relative newcomer to the world of booting such a PC. I've been installing
> >> operating systems on IBM-compatible PCs for more than 3 decades. Not once have I
> >> intentionally installed Grub on an MBR. In the dearth of instances where it did
> >> happen I wiped whatever caused it, and started over with
> >> DOS/OS2/Windows/Linux-compatible MBR code on the MBR. IOW, Grub can live elsewhere
> >> than on the MBR.
>
> > Can you elaborate on what your "DOS/OS2/Windows/Linux-compatible MBR
> > code" is, what functionality you get, and where you obtain it.
>
> I'm not sure there is "a" definition. One could be any code that a Windows
> installation would not replace. Another could be based on what it does:
>
> 1-locate a legal boot flag
> 2-load an appropriate sector pointed to by a legal flag
> 3-announce error if the above conditions are not met
>
> A legal flag is any flag on a primary partition on a disk on which no other boot
> flags are present in the MBR table.
I don't understand the attraction of messing about with boot flags
in order to choose which primary partition to boot from. It seems
inelegant to write to the drive just for that.
With the mbr package from Debian, you can choose at a boot-time prompt.
With Grub, you can also choose for the next boot, any time the system
is running.
> > Are there OSes that would install it themselves to a new blank disk?
>
> One version would be code a Windows installation would put there.
>
> Another would be the result of FDISK /MBR from a MS or PC DOS boot, or FDISK
> /NEWMBR or LVM /NEWMBR from an OS/2, eCS or ArcaOS boot.
>
> I would expect the FreeDOS version of FDISK or its installer to do the same.
>
> I normally use code derived from OS/2, installed by DFSee when I first partition a
> disk.
Obtaining DFSee might be alright for someone invested in MBR booting,
but for most people, MBR is obsolescent. Putting Grub on the MBR can
give a user interface more similar to current machines that use Grub
on UEFI, which seems an advantage.
Cheers,
David.
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