Hi Eric
Interesting, I did not know that much about the ISO/Disk image
background. We would very much want support for that kind of boot. Newer
tools such as Image builder https://github.com/illumos/image-builder do
support the output of hybrid ISO's IIRC (please correct me if it does
not) but slim_source needs some patches. If you can provide me with a
patch for
https://github.com/OpenIndiana/slim_source/blob/oi/hipster/usr/src/cmd/distro_const/utils/create_iso
I'll gladly include it. We would also need a patch for the /usr mounting
of the embedded solaris.zlib files since those are located on different
places in the USB and ISO images from the live environments point of view.
As for OmniOS, I am sure they are happy about a Patch to
https://github.com/omniosorg/kayak to add support.
In Summary we are very Interested in Hybrid ISO support and would love
some patches for our shellscripts to enable that. If you or anybody who
wants to work on that wants to submit patches but needs some guidance,
we have a weekly CoWorking session on Sunday 17:00 CEST for OpenIndiana
where I can help with that. Or You can also mail me, or write in the
list or in the fediverse under #illumos.
Greetings
Till
On 04.06.24 01:48, Eric J Bowman via illumos-discuss wrote:
UEFI with no CSM (excluding CSM "disabled" in "BIOS") sees "Solaris
Boot" or "FreeBSD Boot" when looking for a partition to boot; this isn't
a MBR, so all it can do is boot the drive. Without CSM to tell it how to
legacy boot a drive in 32-bit protected mode, the 16-bit real-mode boot
proceeds from the 8088 running MINIX whence it (likely) came, with but
one exception: PMBR.
Now your installer's running in 16-bit protected mode... so when it goes
to write gptzfsboot... it's really zfsboot... because it doesn't thnk
the system speaks 32-bit UEFI, although it is similar to the language
used by a binary moisture evaporator, or so I'm told.
My "computer museum" (glorified shed) contains my old Packard-Bell 386,
from the days when I was porting my code to protected mode, and couldn't
boot DOS or Windows or Netware from the "CDROM" which was really a CD
Player with an IDE interface. So I had to buy what's been my office
doorstop for 25 years, 100% functional uptime and quite the conversation
piece, says "NEC" on it and has a SCSI interface, only a brick due to
lack of adapterability.
Little did I know until now, that at that time, I could've booted
BSD/Solaris from my Packard Bell's internal CD Player.
The reason that, alone of all Ubuntu distros, Bodhi fails the same way
as, alone of all Solaris distros, XStreamOS-Chandra? They forgot to
-no-emul when they El Torito'd. When you dd distro.iso to a partition,
you get an empty partition and no error message, because the firmware
doesn't know about 3.5" floppy images, so the OS routes the write right
to /dev/null and dd reports a successful write, right? ;-)
It's time to relegate this hack to the dustbin of history, if there's
any room left in there with all those AOL CD's it enabled, and get with
the UEFI program. This issue causes folks to just move on, and reinforce
the word-on-the-street that FreeBSD and Solaris are obsolete relics
which don't comply with UEFI when really, it's just the distro.iso's.
Back to GhostBSD... In the "multiboot community" which includes Rufus,
Ventoy, Etcher, list goes on, compatibility lists exclude all other
FreeBSD/Solaris distros "because FreeBSD/Solaris" for underlying "UEFI
reasons" belied by GhostBSD's presence in Ventoy, which nobody will tell
you comes down to it's /EFI not /efi BUT there you have it. When EFI
came along, /EFI went through the same lowercase() as /boot, because
part of the hack from back when a bunch of bigwigs got high together in
the sierras was breaking FAT with /boot *deliberately* and now that UEFI
mandates vFAT compliance, it's /EFI/boot.
The only reason GhostBSD only installs properly for me from Ventoy, is
that Ventoy copied the hack that Linux uses to launch their kernel in
PXE, which I didn't realize how worked until lately because I'm not into
Linux, but immediately recognize as the ol' QEMM
A20-kbd-interrupt-your-way-into-protected-mode hack... and Linux folks
are saying Solaris is obsolete? Good grief, all y'all need to quit
arguing, because after over a decade away from IT and 15 from Solaris, I
come back and find my problems result from everyone's still using 1980's
hacks. Stop it! :-)
Also, OmniOS CE fails interoperability the same way as Alpine Linux, by
using a " " in what's effectively a DOS filename. Because mkisofs isn't
the only tool that won't bitch about that, thinking you're burning an
Audio CD.
So there's a clear choice to be made in the Solaris and FreeBSD worlds
(Net and Open don't use this hack), moving forward with UEFI or sticking
with supporting CD Player boot, you can't have it both ways.
-Eric
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