> So the FAT partition is good when you want to interoperate. But as you > point out, it's kind of 1/2 of a real fat partition, which means > sometimes, even if it looks ok in vista or whatever, it's not really > ok. It's not really possible to fit a true FAT file system handler in > a 512 byte pbs. The Plan 9 pbs (and I assume most of them) are really > a "find a file by name, get the offset, and just start loading > contiguous data form whatever is at that offset in the partition until > done". That's why there are things like install_grub, or lilo, or > other such tools. If you delete and replace 9load and it ends up > discontiguous, well, you may not be able to boot, hence the need to > sometimes remove and replace all the files in the FAT.
two points, the contiguous requirement is part of the microsoft standard: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/66530/en-us so i think it's a bit unfair to say this is "1/2 of a real fat partition". also, with dossrv, chmod +al will, if possible convert any file into a bootable file. removing all the files is somewhat of a hacky workaround, and dos format kind of beats around the bush. you tell it how much system space to reserve, rather than which files are system files. > It may well be in the long term that > the best way to remove 9load is to make Plan 9 grub-bootable. that doesn't sound very appealing. what advantages does grub have? would you require linux to have plan 9? - erik
