Memstick image differences between 8.x and 9.x

[Nathan Whitehorn]

On 10/08/11 19:25, Matt Thyer wrote:
> On Oct 9, 2011 8:52 AM, "Warren Block"<wblock at wonkity.com>  wrote:
>> On Sat, 8 Oct 2011, Glen Barber wrote:
>>
>>> On 10/8/11 5:40 PM, Warren Block wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 8 Oct 2011, Glen Barber wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On 10/8/11 2:21 PM, Garrett Cooper wrote:
>>>>>>> Are there any general structural differences between FreeBSD 8 and 9
>>>>>>> memstick
>>>>>>> images which could be at fault here?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> The new memstick image uses GPT instead of MBR partitioning.
>>>>>
>>>>> GPT should have no impact on booting from the memory stick, as far as I
>>>>> am aware.
>>>>
>>>> Memory stick should not be a problem, but some of the Lenovo notebooks
>>>> hate GPT, even with a PMBR:
>>>>   http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=26304
>>>>   http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=26759
>>>>
>>> Ugh, that's annoying.  I'm half-tempted to note this in the new
>>> installer chapter, but I don't like the idea of such edge cases as these
>>> to effectively turn that page into a pseudo-HCL.
>>
>> There are already a couple of notes about having to use MBR with XP and
> other older operating systems.  But instead of updating them, I'd rather see
> somebody with one of the affected systems contact somebody with influence at
> Lenovo and say "hey, the FreeBSD guys are talking about making your broken
> GPT support famous" followed quickly by a BIOS update.
> I believe this is actually a case of the memstick image being an improperly
> formatted GPT as there is no backup partition table at the end of the
> volume.
>
> The only sensible answer is to not use GPT for the memstick image.
>
> I not said this,loud enough yet but this is a show stopper for 9.0-RELEASE
> and must be fixed.
>
> We can't have a major release that modern systems cannot install with one of
> now most popular install methods.
>
> As a first step, Andriy Gapon has provided a quick patch for makefs(8) so it
> can create filesystems with UFS labels (as bsdinstall relys on labels).
>
> If you want to fix your memstick, create a copy of the partition table at
> the end of the volume and it should boot.

It is being fixed, pending Andriy's change getting into the tree, which 
should be soon, and will end up being used for the next build (which I 
believe is RC1).

There is also the interesting question of actually installing to GPT on 
the hard disk, which is the default in 9.0. Does this not work on some 
systems? If so, do we want to blacklist them and use a different default 
partition scheme? Can we identify systems that violate regular PC boot 
standards and reject GPT? Any data on any of these points would be 
appreciated.
-Nathan