From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.43) id 1MTfsb-0005Zv-Pk for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:45:25 -0400 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1MTfsZ-0005Z0-V7 for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:45:24 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1MTfsU-0005Ve-Uy for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:45:23 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=48486 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1MTfsU-0005VX-Qz for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:45:18 -0400 Received: from c60.cesmail.net ([216.154.195.49]:50155) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:RSA_ARCFOUR_SHA1:16) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1MTfsU-0004FF-8C for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:45:18 -0400 Received: from unknown (HELO smtprelay2.cesmail.net) ([192.168.1.112]) by c60.cesmail.net with ESMTP; 22 Jul 2009 13:45:17 -0400 Received: from [192.168.0.22] (static-72-92-88-10.phlapa.fios.verizon.net [72.92.88.10]) by smtprelay2.cesmail.net (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 1DFCC34C6A for ; Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:55:50 -0400 (EDT) From: Pavel Roskin To: The development of GRUB 2 In-Reply-To: <20090722172258.GD8706@thorin> References: <20090718184255.GG8867@thorin> <20090718192211.GN8867@thorin> <20090722172258.GD8706@thorin> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:45:15 -0400 Message-Id: <1248284715.10707.13.camel@mj> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.26.3 (2.26.3-1.fc11) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. Subject: Re: [PATCH] Fix when installing on pationless but partionable medium X-BeenThere: grub-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: The development of GRUB 2 List-Id: The development of GRUB 2 List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:45:24 -0000 On Wed, 2009-07-22 at 19:22 +0200, Robert Millan wrote: > On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 11:28:58PM +0200, Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko wrote: > > > I don't understand what you mean here. > > Let's take a common example of cdrom. Most of the users and developers > > are accustomed to a cdrom holding one filesystem. On macs however cds > > are partitioned and not being able to access all the partitions is a > > problem for end user. Such situations are probably common. If we ditch > > has_partitions altogether the only negative side effect will be that > > in some weird configurations unpartitioned media may appear to have > > partitions but whole media is still accessible. Additionally it > > simplifies and makes kernel smaller > > I'm not sure they're so weird. But we could still do it. Pavel, what do > you think? We don't use grub-setup to install GRUB on CDROM. I don't know if we can eliminate has_partitions. If we can, I'm fine. I suggest that we start with known safe cases, such are PC partition table and FAT filesystem. If we can positively identify the place where we install the bootsector as either of that, we can install without --force. We can extend the rules as we check if other filesystems allow overwriting the bootsector. I don't think dumping floppy support would be right at this point. Maybe five years from now. > > > I haven't looked at the source code, but what he said is we can determine if > > > an MBR is valid by checking the bootable flag, and this is not always so. > > I don't see any problem. He said: checking that bootable flags of all > > partitions are either set (0x80) or unset (0x0) and not another value > > Oh, that's different. I think it's fine provided that: > > - None of the commonly used free partitioning tools uses an illegal value. > > - We fail gracefully and let the user know why. I'm fine with extra checks. -- Regards, Pavel Roskin