From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.43) id 1Lp0Z6-00076G-1v for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:33:12 -0400 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Lp0Z4-00076B-7G for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:33:10 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Lp0Yy-00075y-Qq for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:33:08 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=44088 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Lp0Yy-00075v-LL for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:33:04 -0400 Received: from aybabtu.com ([69.60.117.155]:32837) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Lp0Yy-0007CI-99 for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:33:04 -0400 Received: from [192.168.10.10] (helo=thorin) by aybabtu.com with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Lp0Og-0006vr-Vu for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:22:27 +0200 Received: from rmh by thorin with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Lp0Yv-0007Na-AO for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:33:01 +0200 Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 15:33:01 +0200 From: Robert Millan To: The development of GRUB 2 Message-ID: <20090401133301.GF27958@thorin> References: <20090306195735.GA9992@thorin> <1238419927.2868.6.camel@mj> <49D0D8C8.4010801@gmail.com> <200903310106.25852.okuji@enbug.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <200903310106.25852.okuji@enbug.org> Organization: free as in freedom X-Message-Flag: Worried about Outlook viruses? Switch to Thunderbird! www.mozilla.com/thunderbird X-Debbugs-No-Ack: true User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. Subject: Re: [PATCH] build 32-bit Linux loader as `linux', rename legacy loader to `linux16' 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, 01 Apr 2009 13:33:10 -0000 On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 01:06:25AM +0900, Yoshinori K. Okuji wrote: > I don't know any reliable way. Some candidates: > > - The ramdisk max value. On 32-bit, initrd may not be loaded onto over 2GB. > This is hard to change in Linux, so we can expect that this will not change. > On 64-bit, currently, the max is 4GB-1. It is likely that this value will not > change, but who knows. This could be possible, but doesn't sound very reliable. > - The long mode panic message. This exists only for x86_64. But the message > might change some day. Actually, it seems to have changed recently. Doesn't seem too reliable either. > - Otherwise, we could probe some opcodes and see if 64-bit opcodes are used. > This would be error-prone. Same here :-( However, this is not as large a problem as it seems. Most users install GRUB to disk through their distribution, which already provides the right Linux builds in /boot. It could be a problem with removable media, but: - It's easy to solve this when you have a "cpuid" command and know what each of the files you put in the CD is. This also allows for a more user-friendly error message than a Linux panic. - GRUB is rarely used there anyway (most GNU/Linux distros opt for isolinux) -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."