Boot laoder display ans comma problem (FreeBSD 5.1)

[Jerry McAllister]

> 
>  Hello, 
>  
> I am a newbie about FreeBSD but I like this gorgeous OS, elegant and 
> powerful. But FreeBSD is again mysterious for me. I have two problems. 
>  
> First problem : 
>   
> I have two partitions on my hard disk (Western Digital 20GB) with 
> FreeBSD 5.1 and Windows Server 2003. 
>  
>  At present time my Boot loader displays : 
>  
>  "F1 FreeBSD 
>  F2 ?? 
>  
>  Default : F1" 
>  
>  (F2 corresponds to Windows Server 2003). 
>  
>  But I would like to replace "??" by "Windows Server 2003". 
>  
>  How to do this ? Is there a specific file for this ? 
>  
>  Can I modify "/boot/loader.conf", "/boot/loader.conf.local" or 
> "/boot/defaults/loader.conf" ? 
>  
> Is there a modification of a specific file ? 

I can't say anything about your second problem re needing a comment after
the last id in the group file.  I have never seen that problem.

The MBR that comes with FreeBSD has only a small number of OSen it 
has names for.  That is to keep the code very small so it fits 
within a standard sector.   So, it cannot (in any currently
available version) be made to put out a different label for the MS
bootable slice.   It can boot all of them beause that portion of the
boot process is standardized pretty well.  It just doesn't waste
table space on more than just  FreeBSD, MD-Dos and a couple more.

But there are some other MBRs available such as Grub and Gag that
do not limit themselves so tightly and can be made to display a wider
range of OS identifiers.    Grub and Gag seem to be the best known.
Check in the ports and in Google searches, etc.  Everyone who cares 
about it at all (I just ignore it - somehow identifying a MS slice 
as ??? seems appropriate) has their favorite and you may get other 
suggeestions as well.

////jerry