[syslinux] BIOS disk geometry and Linux 2.6

[Michael_E_Brown at Dell.com]

Just do the int13 calls in setup.S and save the results in empty-zero-page.
Make the data available via sys/proc. Write a user program to use this in
conjunction with disksig/EDD to fixup the /proc/ide/xxx/settings file after
finding the correct one.

This is the only way to do this reliably that I can see. And it is not that
hard. Copy the disksig code (a couple dozen lines). I have a 2 dozen line
python lib that does the disksig finding. This is not that hard of a
problem.

--
Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: syslinux-bounces at zytor.com [mailto:syslinux-bounces at zytor.com] On
Behalf Of Brown, Michael E
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 12:33 PM
To: hpa at zytor.com
Cc: patl at users.sourceforge.net; syslinux at zytor.com
Subject: RE: [syslinux] BIOS disk geometry and Linux 2.6


Even then, not good.

I am the principle architect for Dell Server Assitant 8.0. It is an
installer that Dell ships with every server we sell. The new version is
based on Linux and uses isolinux.

We must always ask permission from the user before we change a block on the
disk. Asking for this permission from the boot loader would not be an
acceptable user interface (our marketing people would freak out).

--
Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: H. Peter Anvin [mailto:hpa at zytor.com] 
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 12:29 PM
To: Brown, Michael E
Cc: patl at users.sourceforge.net; syslinux at zytor.com
Subject: Re: [syslinux] BIOS disk geometry and Linux 2.6


Michael_E_Brown at Dell.com wrote:
> Hmm...
> 
> Writing to the disk from your bootloader.
> 
> I can think of all kinds of situations where we completely screw the
> system doing this. You would have to have some kind of very rigorously 
> controlled environment to have a hope of not messing things up.
>

This is not for a general boot loader, remember.  This is for an
*installer*, which will wipe disks anyway.

	-hpa

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