Re: boot(8) diffs

[Stephen Borrill <netbsd%precedence.co.uk@localhost>]

On Sun, 12 Oct 2008, Marcin M. Jessa wrote:
> > > > > > I dont know why but I with the latest patch I can see following text 
> > > > > > when I boot my computer:
> > > > > > Fn: diskn
> > > What I did was running fdisk -B and fdisk -i and installboot on wd0a
> > > I think I may have run installdisk on wd0d as well (the entire disk)
> >
> > See the description of the -B option in man fdisk; it explicitly does this.
> That's strange. Without -B I never got any menu to chose kernel from and (the 
> 1.st stage bootloader?) the system said there was no OS to boot.
> I have Linux and NetBSD on the same drive but if I understood the man pages 
> correctly there can be only one active partition and then
> the 2.nd stage bootloader takes care of what O.S to boot.
> Why then using -B would print some garbage and not just jump into my active 
> partition?

"Fn: diskn" isn't garbage. It's short for "press function key n to boot 
from disk n"; the mbr code is extremely space limited, so terseness is a 
necessity.

--
Stephen