On Sun, 26 Oct 2008 09:49:14 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> I'm now wondering if that's the case - if it uses ntfs.sys;
> 
> I might have been out of date. Maybe that was ntfs-2g or something.  I
> just know what I've heard people tell me.  My research (as of a day or
> two ago) tells me it's actually all native code, unencumbered by IP.

I've probably been one of those people telling you, because I thought it 
did use ntfs.sys.  :-)

>> Well, yes.  There was specific boot sector code in the MBR to do that,
> 
> Yeah, but every MBR I ever saw does it that way. It used to be the only
> way to boot a different OS.

Yeah, until we got to the fancy menus, which required additional code 
that wouldn't fit in one sector.

>>> Yes, MS's boot sector follows the standard that's been around for a
>>> decade longer than Linux has. GRUB's doesn't. What do you think MS is
>>> doing wrong here?
>> 
>> My understanding is that the Microsoft MBR (at least as included in
>> Vista, possibly with older versions as well) depends on that boot.ini
>> file, much as GRUB depends on the files in /boot/grub.
> 
> Maybe Vista, since it has a new boot record. I'll play with it to see.
> 
> But everything before that, from DOS thru Win95 through XP all just load
> the first sector of the active partition and jumps to it. Now, that
> said, the first sector of the XP partition relies on NTLDR and boot.ini
> being present. But you'd have to work really hard to fit NTFS into 480
> bytes, even if only to find boot.ini, you know?

True, now you mention it, I do recall this.

>> Thing is, it shouldn't require a change to the active partition list.
> 
> It doesn't *require* it. It *allows* it.

No, I mean in order to boot a different partition.

>> But also, GRUB can be told to change the default for a single boot only
>> - at least I seem to recall there's an option to do that.
> 
> Again, my Linux sysop knowledge is probably out of date. The version as
> of a couple years ago doesn't allow that, and I can't afford to risk
> breaking 60 production machines to check if it's better now. :-)

I'll have to see if I can find that one - I was sure I saw the option 
somewhere, but of course now I can't find it. :-)

>> Installing Linux (at least openSUSE) on a drive with Windows on it, the
>> installer will set Windows up as a menu option so you can select
>> either. Installing Windows after Linux, though, Windows won't add Linux
>> to the boot menu automatically.  I guess that's what I was trying to
>> say.
> 
> Oh, it's not automated, sure. But it's pretty trivial, compared to a lot
> of Linux things. :-)  If you wind up installing Windows after Linux, you
> probably are smart enough to type the two or three command-line bits it
> takes to get the Linux boot sector into Windows.

Probably, yes - though it's probably easier to modify the Grub setup at 
that point and just add the Windows install.  Most people I know who 
install Windows second, though, use a VM rather than a native boot.

>> I had thought GRUB on my system here was set up with the MBR, but I was
>> in fact mistaken - it's in the root partition instead.
> 
> I'm not sure what that means. I know *all* of GRUB doesn't fit in the
> MBR, any more than NTLDR does. It's just a question of whether GRUB's
> MBR does something necessary to make GRUB boot, or whether you can boot
> a GRUB partition off someone else's MBR. Right now, my tests (on SuSE
> 10.2) are telling me GRUB needs GRUB's MBR. It might be better now, or I
> might be doing something wrong.

It means that GRUB on my system here is using the active partition.  I 
don't know what's in the MBR on this laptop's hard drive, but the 
settings when I go into YaST and look indicate that it's installed to the 
first sector of the active partition.

Jim

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