"J.C. Roberts" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sat, 17 Dec 2005 18:03:21 +0100, Martin Reindl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > >"J.C. Roberts" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > >> On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 13:50:48 -0800, "J.C. Roberts" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >> wrote: > >> > >> >(2) When doing the installation disklabel, the "suggested" starting > >> >offset for the 'a' partition is 0? I know using an offset of 0 is > >> >discouraged on i386 and other systems (default is 63), so I figured I'd > >> >ask if using a 0 offset is the "best/correct" way for alpha? > >> > >> Just for those searching the misc@ archives... > >> > >> I received info off-list that disklabel is doing the right thing by > >> using an offset of 0 on the alpha architecture. > > > >I wonder anyway how you got the impression it was doing wrong and the > >offset would be 63 for the first slice. FAQ 14.1 only talks about i386 > >and amd64 under 'Disklabel tricks and tips/Leave first track free'. > >It's clear imo. > > There's a difference between thinking disklabel is doing the wrong thing > and just making sure it's doing the right thing. ;-) > > The alpha PSW is a weird beast with it's "Dual BIOS" where the first > AlphaBIOS/ARC is for running WinNT4 with x86 BIOS emulation support and > the second, the SRM Console, is for running Tru64 and OpenVMS. > > The guys I've talked to at Digital/Compaq/HP told me the multitude of > alpha SRM's are very much closed source (due to the fact they control > VMS licensing/revenue) and obviously, each SRM is specifically built for > each machine model. On the weird machines like the PSW where > multi/dual-booting NT, VMS and OSF/1 can be done, there *might* be some > mad hackery in this particular SRM with a requirement for keeping the > first (logical) track free for the MBR. > > >From what I've read, I think the way the linux guys have hacked a way > into supporting the use of AlphaBIOS/ARC on the PSW is by having the MBR > and a small FAT partition for lilo and such. This same approach is used > on the PSW when running WinNT4 with NTFS. > > In a situation where you are *only* running OpenBSD, using a offset of 0 > is probably just fine. On the other hand, if you happen to have WinNT > installed someplace (i.e. installed on another disk), the supposedly > "harmless" tag that NT writes on all disks might make a real mess of > your OBSD install. > > The problem is not so much that the OpenBSD docs are unclear, instead, > the problem is the setup of particular machine, particularly in > muti-boot configs, can be very convoluted. I only asked because I'm just > trying to *understand* what the heck I'm doing and what all the possible > ramifications are. -In other words, curiosity. ;-)
So they only problem now is documenting how to multiboot OpenBSD and WinNT on alpha? Pardon me, but i don't expect Nick to put up a section about this in the FAQ. Especially since it would involve explaining AlphaBIOS fiddling which has nothing to do with OpenBSD and is a major PITA anyway. martin
