From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from list by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.71) id 1SmFRm-0002dy-Bm for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 03 Jul 2012 22:36:06 -0400 Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:56802) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SmE0p-0007d6-HM for grub-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 03 Jul 2012 21:04:12 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SmE0n-0006tg-OY for grub-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 03 Jul 2012 21:04:11 -0400 Received: from mail-pb0-f41.google.com ([209.85.160.41]:34596) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SmE0n-0006tQ-I3 for grub-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 03 Jul 2012 21:04:09 -0400 Received: by pbbrp2 with SMTP id rp2so11331428pbb.0 for ; Tue, 03 Jul 2012 18:04:05 -0700 (PDT) X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=google.com; s=20120113; h=message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:subject :content-type:content-transfer-encoding:x-gm-message-state; bh=CaKL6l0haOfp0mQ0NZvwI7Eh0zb8+o5+x4i/By2jSbI=; b=Hj/3hN+iwfN7eukYxbvoMj73u+aEEGamNkCh40wi/RLVqQHtm5WzGPd/ptBeCF/TCB qr+XhdONw6KuVc+FApL7syV8zAe8w/YSZeDZLRixC8LhfWIe2jW8Pcq3ni4tAY+/C/SW YX+4NmP4wiB3cCJMUqt2byx7I+foH5Q0J7VWNdr0I1rMLpZA3kMdXL7TnW3enb1IoCId IYiTrBZXxTWbS1lnDFhxWvoGCwePD53ONYL2MmiEdkZQbTCGrMMIHDFbQ1TMonACBtcL 8cKFO+E3xDpZlzmHn4aHnJoRVKQDpwLu3cd1GQl3gTUyyOwp1s45yQkkWKC86qpSxL5Y Panw== Received: by 10.68.223.167 with SMTP id qv7mr12439949pbc.127.1341363845817; Tue, 03 Jul 2012 18:04:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [192.168.1.112] ([49.48.149.33]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id se9sm16574254pbc.25.2012.07.03.18.04.02 (version=SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Tue, 03 Jul 2012 18:04:04 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <4FF39680.9050004@pimco.mobi> Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2012 08:04:00 +0700 From: Andy Canfield User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:13.0) Gecko/20120615 Thunderbird/13.0.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: grub-devel@gnu.org Subject: Question Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Gm-Message-State: ALoCoQmuzN9qaWD34MfDi6Ox0mF5Ukfh2gWbsevv1ltxyhylthYL7M4Q7xZpOU2uNhxy+zxxmbGX X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 209.85.160.41 X-Mailman-Approved-At: Tue, 03 Jul 2012 22:36:05 -0400 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: Wed, 04 Jul 2012 01:04:13 -0000 I have a question. Bruce Dubbs said "Ask on the grub-devel site".

I went to http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/grub-development.html and read this:

Those interested in its development should subscribe to the developers' mailing list. As this list is a members-only list, please subscribe to it then send e-mail to this list.

Maybe I must subscribe to "the developer's mailing list" in order to be able to get an answer to my question. So I clicked on the link, and what I got was a blank e-mail addressed to "grub-devel@gnu.org". So I am asking. If I must subscribe to the mailing list to get the answer, please sign me up.

Here is the question:

Why can't grub boot from an standard bootable CD?

I have many such CD's, such as the Microsoft Windows 98 install CD. Why can't grub boot from that? There must be a technical reason, but nobody says what it is. Grub can boot from all kinds of hard disks, and from diskettes; why not CD's?

I started on an IBM 360/20 many decades ago. You dialed "0080" on the CPU and pressed the "LOAD" button. The CPU read the first card into address 0x0080 and jumped to it. I still think of booting in terms of "read it into memory and jump to it". Certainly grub should be able to use the BIOS to read the CD into memory and jump to that memory image. Why can the BIOS do that, but grub cannot?

Thank you.