Re: 64 Bit Support?

[Constantine Kousoulos <wuwei@freemail.gr>]

Stefan Reinauer wrote:
> The problem might be that Grub2 locks out existing operating systems, 
> if it does not support switching to long mode itself. I read rumours
> only, so I might be completely wrong.
> 
> Is anyone booting non-Linux OSes like FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD,
> OpenSolaris, etc with GRUB2 yet? 
> 

Excuse me for stepping into this discussion. I've trying for a 
while to load an elf64 kernel using GRUB2 and i have failed so 
far. The reasons for this are many and they can answer why not 
many people use GRUB2 to load their oses. Firstly, the next 
version of the multiboot specification does not correspond to the 
current implementation of GRUB2. It describes many things that 
GRUB2 does not do. This creates confusion and disappointment. 
Besides that document, there is virtually no other doc for  GRUB2. 
Secondly, the wiki's entries on testing GRUB2 on x86 need serious 
update. Thirdly, if anyone cares to use a boot loader nowdays, 
he/she expects to support loading elf64 images. Although GRUB2 is 
supposed to do that, in practice that is not completely true. One 
reason is because none of the GRUB2 developers cared to state 
explicitly that GRUB2 does not set up long mode. Personally, i 
found out about it the hard way by looking into source code. In 
addition to that, i think that there are a few other bugs that 
prevent GRUB2 from loading elf64 images. Lastly, i found very 
little support from the grub-devel mailing list. Since GRUB2 is 
still in development and there is little documentation, i expected 
to find a little more feedback than the one i got lately. I think 
that giving no feedback to normal users puts people off from using 
GRUB2.

I think that the above problems need to be addressed in order for 
GRUB2 to be an even greater piece of software than Grub Legacy 
currently is.

Regards,
Constantine