Re: Guidance on conflicts between GNU GRUB and proprietary software

[Bogdan]

> On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 02:10:20AM -0700, Bogdan wrote:

> > >  * The BIOS can often only read from relatively near the start of the
> > >    disk, and core.img must be readable by the BIOS.  If some other
> > >    operating system is already installed - the common dual-boot case,
> > >    and the case where this problem is overwhelmingly most likely to
> > >    matter - it's likely to occupy a large stretch of partitioned space
> > >    right after the boot track.
> > 
> > Are you talking about the conventional INT 13h interface?
>
> Yes, which is the only thing that will fit into the boot sector which
> needs to read everything else.

I disagree. You have more than enough space for both EDD and conventional INT 
13h. If you're thinking about something like ATA/ATAPI, sure, that's just 
crazy. 
Then, you chainload the boot sector of the GRUB partition and that does all the 
work that's necessary. If, for whatever reason, EDD is not available, the only 
sane thing to do is to move all partitions to the end of the disk and have the 
GRUB partition first (yes, I'm aware that's slow but at least it's sane).

> > >  * The MBR format has so many irritating restrictions on primary
> > >    partitions that the more partitions an operating system needs to
> > >    create by default, the more stress we put on partitioning
> > >    algorithms.  (Most people don't notice any of this until they try to
> > >    install on a machine whose OEM helpfully created three or four
> > >    primary partitions already.)
> > 
> > Only one of the 4 primary partitions can be active. So, turn whatever is 
> > not 

> > needed into an extended partition. What tools with this screw over? Or, are 
>we 
>
> > talking about OSes that don't support extended partitions here?
>
> It rather depends on the pattern of free space that's available;
> consider for example the case where there's already a logical partition
> but there is another primary partition between it and the space you
> actually want to use.  The precise details are off-topic for this list,
> though.

Here too, you can just move partitions around a bit (the same comment as above 
applies).

I can't see why not since the precise details influence the design of GRUB. 
However, if there's a better place for this, I will happily talk about this 
there.

Cheers,
Bogdan