Re: Killing off the boot sector (was: [STATUS 2.5] January 8, 2002)

[John Bradford <john@grabjohn.com>]

> Can we *please* kill off the stupid in-kernel boot sector?
> 
> Here is a patch that guts it to print an error message.  It's even
> tested.

> -# This procedure turns off the floppy drive motor, so
> -# that we enter the kernel in a known state, and
> -# don't have to worry about it later.
> -# NOTE: Doesn't save %ax or %dx; do it yourself if you need to.
> -
> -kill_motor:
> -#if 1
> -	xorw	%ax, %ax		# reset FDC
> -	xorb	%dl, %dl
> -	int	$0x13
> -#else
> -	movw	$0x3f2, %dx
> -	xorb	%al, %al
> -	outb	%al, %dx
> -#endif
> -	ret

Shouldn't that part stay, incase somebody boots a machine from a
floppy, and leaves it running for hours?

> +	.ascii	"Direct booting from floppy is no longer supported.\r\n"
> +	.ascii	"Please use a boot loader program instead.\r\n"
> +	.ascii	"\n"
> +	.ascii	"Remove disk and press any key to reboot . . .\r\n"

Couldn't you put an ASCII penguin in there?  :-)

John.