From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from list by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.71) id 1QOSx9-0005dF-AV for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 23 May 2011 07:05:39 -0400 Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:37448) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QOSx7-0005ZA-1I for grub-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 23 May 2011 07:05:37 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QOSx6-00030S-0U for grub-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 23 May 2011 07:05:37 -0400 Received: from mail-ww0-f49.google.com ([74.125.82.49]:50083) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QOSx5-000303-Sk for grub-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 23 May 2011 07:05:35 -0400 Received: by mail-ww0-f49.google.com with SMTP id 39so4960063wwb.30 for ; Mon, 23 May 2011 04:05:35 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to :subject:references:in-reply-to:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=6jlaBDICT5qCFIBL42UzRnXtEZTkkgauFboDEh7nkX4=; b=sssP+jfUEH/740tHxBXcDyjnyL1VOIdAIBeCy8Hvn29tRyct5SPU/t8sY3f5nHGaJp qcXyWBcj7WpEGrvgi8Wt6CerUUQMd56LY+ED6R03/DejBDEMMmodmYmgJXbufapg1nzM dBhEvhl9xo7uo3R9gQhkzEgE3h/3M+/I2kPZs= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:references :in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=TD9wvV4IIXvUy2DiLep2RMMcrnFI+zCPe02zjZUsmeGxzhFY3eGlwCjIlw9Sh6MeCv +sAAwDzJgArlzt0tNEROviWhkeyeSVCTUgt7zEOX13Nu1HqEMDeoV0sJlxxJbYKT8B3W U42U7lzNT0jAz+MSF5a3sM7SyovhYGiBvD/+Y= Received: by 10.216.140.140 with SMTP id e12mr2031696wej.69.1306148734928; Mon, 23 May 2011 04:05:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [147.210.128.210] (laptop-147-210-128-210.labri.fr [147.210.128.210]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id y35sm3201475weq.15.2011.05.23.04.05.33 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Mon, 23 May 2011 04:05:33 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <4DDA3F7C.60505@gmail.com> Date: Mon, 23 May 2011 13:05:32 +0200 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Gr=E9goire_Sutre?= User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.15) Gecko/20110402 Iceowl/1.0b2 Icedove/3.1.9 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: grub-devel@gnu.org Subject: Re: Boot sector for ext2 References: <4DD76A42.70600@rosenau-ka.de> In-Reply-To: <4DD76A42.70600@rosenau-ka.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 2) X-Received-From: 74.125.82.49 X-BeenThere: grub-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list Reply-To: The development of GNU GRUB List-Id: The development of GNU GRUB List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 23 May 2011 11:05:37 -0000 On 05/21/2011 09:31 AM, Martin Rosenau wrote: > Background: In a multi-OS-environment it is sometimes not possible > installing GRUB on the MBR (Windows Vista has problems then!) > Installing GRUB on an ext2 partition (instead of on the MBR) often requires > "block lists" which often do not work. > > I wrote a boot sector that is capable to search a file on the ext2 partition > by file name (not by inode or block number etc...) and load it. Because the > entire code is quite small it fits into the boot sector and "block lists" > are not required. I find this very interesting. The two alternatives that exist currently (or, at least, that I know of), namely (a) installing in the MBR (+ the following sectors), or (b) using block-lists, have well-known shortcomings. With your solution, one could simply write the boot sector in an ext2 partition's boot record, and put GRUB files in the ext2 filesystem. Whatever is in the MBR would then simply chainload the ext2 partition. Is this correct? Grégoire