Re: [PATCH] BIOS boot vs EFI system partition mountpoint

[Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost>]

On Sat, Aug 20, 2022 at 08:45:29PM +0700, Robert Elz wrote:
>     Date:        Sat, 20 Aug 2022 12:00:31 +0000
>     From:        Taylor R Campbell <riastradh%NetBSD.org@localhost>
>     Message-ID:  <20220820120026.B273F609EB%jupiter.mumble.net@localhost>
> 
> 
>   | I'd like to have a standard mount point for the EFI system partition
>   | on platforms with EFI boot.
> 
> I use /efi ... just seemed like the obvious thing to do to me.
> 
>   | I propose to change NetBSD/x86 BIOS boot so it looks for the secondary
>   | bootloader at /biosboot instead of /boot, but falls back to /boot.
> 
> I think that's a very poor idea, sorry.   Not what that paragraph implies,
> but ...
> 
>   | and we can have /boot as the standard mount point for ESP on
>   | platforms with EFI boot.
> 
> this which it enables, as x86 platforms are one of the systems which
> use EFI boot, and while when using EFI to boot, /boot is irrelevant,
> not all x86 systems use it.   If we start making distributions where
> /boot is a directory, then lots of those systems are going to fail.
> 
> Of course they wouldn't if they have installed the new version of the PBR
> boot blocks, but I know of lots of people who essentially never do that.
> They have happily done NetBSD upgrades (major version upgrades) without
> touching anything outside the NetBSD filesystems.   At least since we
> stopped encoding the /boot block numbers in the PBR boot code.   The boot
> blocks work, updating them to something which should work, but who knows
> since this is all BIOS using code, and no-one can test against every
> ancient BOIS that ever existed, is dangerous.
> 
> I am using EFI booting now, so this isn't immediately relevant directly,
> but I an assure you that I was one of the people who did what I just
> described, I'd never upgrade working boot blocks if there was any
> alternative.
> 
> Please leave /boot as it is (on x86 and arm and anything else that uses
> something of that name) and make a new standard place for mounting the ESP.
> That can be /efi (which I am currently using) or anywhere else that seems
> reasonable (I can easily update my fstab), just not /boot (not on arm
> systems either, unless there is some very good reason that it has to be
> that way, which I very much doubt - the ESP should contain nothing that
> is needed while the system is running, except when there is a need to
> update it - my /efi is "noauto" in fstab, and I almost never mount it).

seconded.

-- 
Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost>
     NetBSD: 26 ans d'experience feront toujours la difference
--