The documentation in /usr/src/sys/boot/i386 seems a little scant, and that
still hanging out in /usr/src/sys/i386/boot is clearly outdated. Was
wondering if someone could point me at docs, and/or post a short summary
something in the form of:
loader loadedby function
--------------------------------
mbr BIOS whatever, maybe a couple of lines
boot0 ??? "" ""...
boot1 ??? "" ""...
boot2 boot1 FreeBSD bootloader that speaks protected mode,
etc, and can load the kernel around gaps in
physical memory, etc.
loader boot2 Forth interpreter + scripting for great fun
kernel loader or boot2 The kernel
Once we get into boot2 land, I recognize the FreeBSD-specific loading
code, etc. What I don't know much about is those first three 512-byte
chunks of code. Boot0 appears to be booteasy, but given some ignorance
about the i386 boot process, I'm not sure whether it's loaded by mbr, or
by the bios, and where it lives partition-wise. Similarly, how boot1 fits
into it the whole scheme--I assume this is FreeBSD-specific as it knows
about boot2, but don't know where it lives, etc. Preferably, afterwards,
also drop the results into sys/boot/i386/README. :-)
Thanks,
Robert N M Watson
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.watson.org/~robert/
PGP key fingerprint: AF B5 5F FF A6 4A 79 37 ED 5F 55 E9 58 04 6A B1
TIS Labs at Network Associates, Safeport Network Services
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