Re: Guidance on conflicts between GNU GRUB and proprietary software

["Grégoire Sutre" <gregoire.sutre@gmail.com>]

On 09/28/2010 09:05 PM, Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko wrote:

> Using an embedding partition on msdos as an optional alternative (not as
> replacement) to MBR gap is a clear possibility, good idea and was
> proposed before but details are very unclear. Like:
> - How to create such partition
> - How does grub find it and ensures that it's an embedding partition?
> Any false positive will result in data loss. Obviously no msdos type is
> completely unused by now so it's not a way.

We could borrow a partition type that is reliably used only by boot 
managers (for similar purposes).  Ok, we may overwrite some boot manager 
code sitting in that partition.  But would this be different from what 
happens in the GPT case?

Regarding the question of whether such an MSDOS partition type exists, I 
did not look very hard, but 45h comes to mind.  This type is used by the 
Boot-US boot manager.  It is reported as such by NetBSD fdisk.  It is 
not listed in the known types of Linux fdisk.  Are you aware of other 
uses for this partition type?

If we really want to embed in an MSDOS partition, selecting a partition 
type that is already used for similar purposes is IMHO our best option. 
This would be a step in a direction to set a ``standard'' MSDOS type for 
boot partitions.  We don't need one partition type per boot-loader 
software anyway.

Grégoire