From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1S09PY-00058J-KO for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:27:00 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 25CE5E1D9D; Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:26:50 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [140.211.166.183]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C8B6CE1D0A for ; Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:26:19 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [192.168.178.31] (e178074185.adsl.alicedsl.de [85.178.74.185]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) (Authenticated sender: chithanh) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 16C4E1B401B for ; Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:26:17 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: <4F44C2C3.40708@gentoo.org> Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:26:11 +0100 From: =?UTF-8?B?Q2jDrS1UaGFuaCBDaHJpc3RvcGhlciBOZ3V54buFbg==?= User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:10.0.1) Gecko/20120220 Firefox/10.0.1 SeaMonkey/2.7.1 Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Subject: [gentoo-dev] default to syslinux instead of grub, was Re: About gcc-4.6 unmasking References: <1329770054.21166.12.camel@belkin4> <20120220190313.57892cfa@gentoo.org> <4F42F0AA.50004@gentoo.org> <20120220200220.3a54d88a@gentoo.org> <1329816398.2868.1.camel@belkin4> In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 1.3.5 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Archives-Salt: b396cb46-b8f3-420a-bd95-5047c2b3ec95 X-Archives-Hash: 04cef96852c4704c8c9e5e5d6c9533be -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 James Cloos schrieb: > B> I would hesitate to say it's the *sanest* thing to do, but we=20 > should at B> least get it into ~arch and make sure our=20 > documentation is up to date. >=20 > Actually, given grub2's crazy config, the real upgrade from grub1=20 > is sys-boot/syslinux's extlinux(1). >=20 > The configuration and operation styles are much more comfortable=20 > for those who are familiar with grub1. >=20 > It would make a better default for x86/amd64 than grub1 or grub2. Speaking as sys-boot/syslinux maintainer, I would like to see it included in the official installation documentation. However there are some differences between grub{,2} and syslinux/extlinux that could block universal adoption. Installation: Syslinux installs into a partition which means that /boot must be on one of the supported filesystems. Currently these are btrfs, ext2/3/4 and vfat (ntfs support will come in the next release). Also this means that /boot cannot reside on a logical partition. To my knowledge, there are no plans to allow booting from LVM either. Dual-booting: Telling users to create GPT instead of MBR partitions could address the logical partition issue, however this would make dual-booting Windows difficult. And Windows has been observed to behave strangely when its BCD is not on a partition which has the boot flag set. There are workarounds but documenting them would increase the complexity of the handbook. EFI: Syslinux does not boot on EFI yet. Not a big problem as UEFI will fall back to BIOS mode but this can bite users on Apple hardware. Xen: Booting Xen generally works, but some specialties like Mini-OS aren't supported and likely won't be in the near future. tl;dr Syslinux/extlinux can replace grub in many if not most cases. But for a number of setups it is not well-suited. So a documented and stable grub2 will still be needed. Best regards, Ch=C3=AD-Thanh Christopher Nguy=E1=BB=85n -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk9EwsIACgkQ+gvH2voEPRBInwCfT9t7qmILcCG11pKcJJlJSMpr hggAmwaeo4sl2OwnyhLr5sZFV+hUM7Vc =3Dl/NZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----