Hello,
I am working on the change in the GRUB partition syntax, to
correspond with the BSD-style slice nomenclature. I have only changed the
syntax, i.e.
(hd1,0) is entered as /dev/hd1s1,
(hd0,2,a) is entered as /dev/hd0s2a,
(hd0,0) is entered as /dev/hd0s0.
But according to BSD style, the slice names are according to the order in
which the IDE drives are found, **including** CDROM drives. Which means
that
------------------------+-----------+---------------+----------------------
DISK NAME | BSD style | Old GRUB-style| New GRUB style
------------------------+-----------+---------------+----------------------
IDE 1: HDD,Pri. Master, | | |
part. 1 |/dev/hd0s1 | (hd0,0) | /dev/hd0s0
| | |(should be /dev/hd0s1)
part. 3, BSD 'a' slice |/dev/hd0s3a| (hd0,2,a) | /dev/hd0s2a
| | |(should be /dev/hd0s3a)
------------------------+-----------+---------------+----------------------
IDE 2: CDROM drive, |/dev/hd1 | Not supported | ????
Pri Slave | | |(should be /dev/hd1)
------------------------+-----------+---------------+----------------------
IDE 3: HDD, Sec. Slave | | |
part. 1 |/dev/hd2s1 | (hd1,0) | /dev/hd1s0
| | |(should be /dev/hd2s1)
part. 4 |/dev/hd2s4 | (hd1,3) | /dev/hd1s3
| | |(should be /dev/hd2s4)
------------------------+-----------+---------------+----------------------
All the 'should be' items are due to the fact that there is no checking
for CD-ROM drives connected as IDE drives. If we were to add that, then
the conversion to the BSD-slice syntax would be complete. The change in the
partition names is very easy, we just have to add 1 to the
current_partition, so I haven't included it as yet. But 'current_drive' is
problematic. Attached is the patch to the file 'disk_io.c' in the 'diff
-u' format.
Also now for DOS/Win95 partitions, you have to specify /dev/hd0s0, and not
0x80. All root partitions have to be given with a preceeding '/dev/'. All
kernels are specified with a kernel=/filename, without the preceeding
"/dev/....." argument, this simplifies the code to a great extent.
I have tested the patch on my small system: more testing is required.
NOTE: Sometimes I recieved a SIGSEGV after I tried to autocomplete the
kernel=/vm... line, but not always. Please check for glitches.
IDE 1: Pri. Master:
/dev/hda1 : Win95
/dev/hda2 : Minix-2.0.0
/dev/hda3(a) : FreeBSD 3.0
IDE 2: Pri. Slave: ATAPI CD-ROM drive.
/dev/hdb
IDE 3: Sec. Master:
/dev/hdc1 : GNU/Hurd
/dev/hdc5 : RedHat Linux 5.2
/dev/hdc6 : Debian Linux 2.1
/dev/hdc8 : Linux Swap
Thanks,
--------------------
Ashutosh S. Rajekar
