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Windows XP and Incompatibilities with Multi-Booting?
Morgan asks: "
Windows XP (Whistler) won't boot from disks with MBR partition tables, requiring a new GUID Partition Table (GPT). It will still read and write MBR disks. In a cursory search, I find no work to support GPT with LILO or other multi-booting Linux loaders. I'm a 'one OS, one disk' man, especially since disks are so cheap, but what about those who aren't handy with a screwdriver (and an IDE cable)? An easily installable Linux distro that shrinks the Windows partition, but allows multi-booting without requiring a re-install of Windows is a great Trojan horse: 'here, try this real OS, but if you don't like it, or you need a particular app, you can always boot Windows.' Will GPT make this harder?" What reasoning was behind the move to GPT? By making Whistler incompatible with the standard MBR, this could be seen by many as another move to stifle competition in the PC market. How do you feel about it?
According to the FAQ, this is a problem only with the 64 bit versions, not the 32 bit versions (see #'s 13-16 especially 16. So this will only affect "Big Iron" not ordinary dual-boot situations.
If you read down the page, it sounds like that's exactly what they are doing on x86.
It would be rather unfortunate to see lots of 1981-style PC crap like the MBR make it onto the IA-64 platform. One obviously bad bit is the whole BIOS/Boot routine which just reeks of the stoneage. Someone make an Open Firmware PC!
Considering that Intel is funding Linux on IA64 development, presumably the proper folks have been informed. (Since the big boys, Sun DEC etc have dropped UNIX-on-IA64 plans, Intel needs Linux badly to get this stuff into the datacenter.)
Yeah, and issuing a mandatory federal ID card could be seen by many as government oppression. Which, of course, would not be true.
Microsoft is not under any obligation to make their operating system to coexist with other, competing operating systems. Insisting that a corporation, which is in business to make money, should respect competing products is just plain lunacy.
Yes, it sounds like EFI/GPT is a useful step up from MBR. On the other hand, abrupt transitions like this are generally bad things. If Microsoft cared about the people using their OS (haha) they would have a version or two which supported both, and then dump MBR later.
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Open mind, insert foot.
Your CS prof must consider the entire open source movement an exercise in stupdiity, then. For that, his comments warrant no creditiblity whatsoever.
...not been developed as a result of a requirement analysis.
...not been designed before coding.
...not been audited before coding.
...not been formally block tested.
...not been formally integration tested.
...not been formally documented, meaning all the steps mentioned above.
a)
Open source software, in general, comes into being as a result of a coder scratching a personal itch. This is about as close to a requirements analysis as you'll get, and it's good enough for me. A coder had the presence of mind to notice a lack, and he set out to meet it.
b)
Well, it's a safe bet a lot of OSS coders actually do have educations, and are at least marginally intelligent. So yes, at least some of the projects are designed.
c)
Extraneous formality that doesn't really fit into the type of development models most OSS projects employ.
d)
e)
f)
See above. Do we look like a bunch of coders in suits to you? Reality check time. If the OSS world worried about this sort of formaility, nothing would ever get done. Sheesh, get your head out of the sand.
Dealing with for-profit corporations is very easy. When you buy their product, you are giving a vote of confidence and approval in them - their products, their people, and their practices. When you don't buy their products, you are doing just the opposite. Since they want to make money, successful for-profit corporations will alter their products, people, and practices in ways that maximize the number of people who buy their products. If you buy a product from a company of which you do not approve, you are voting for Buchanan when you claim you wanted Gore. And, like those who did that, you are being incredibly stupid.
Proudly 100% Microsoft-free for over 5 years.
The Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) is an attempt to bring ancient PC "standards" up to something reasonable. Almost all hardware and OS/driver vendors are _for_ this. This is an attempt to give PC's real firmware, rather than the hack they have now.
If you've ever used big iron UNIX hardware, you've probably enjoyed the conveniance that the firmware itself provides (or maybe not).
Replacing the MBR is one aspect of this. This is not something to worry about unless MS pulls the embrace and extend crap, but I doubt they'd stoop to it on such a low-level aspect.
With some exceptions, all OS, Driver, and Hardware developers/vendors want EFI.
Possible conspiracy theories:
Realistically, the worst that EFI can do is give us something better than what we have now. At best, it could make PC's pleasurable (but don't bet on it).
This won't be running on your pc unless you plan on running the 64bit OS on an Itanium on your desktop soon. This only applies to the 64bit version of Whistler. Don't worry about it on your x86 boxen, OK?
Besides, why would you want that crappy IBM DOS MBR setup on a newly defined hardware platform? This new GUID bs complies with the specs for Intel's Open Firmware (or whatever they call it).
Everybody take a deep breath... Microsoft isn't out to get you this time. Return to work, nothing to see here.
_damnit_
_damnit_
It's my job to freeze you. -- Logan's Run
Monopolies are not outlawed in the United States. Where did you here that garbage? In fact, Congress has enshrined one institution in America as safe from any anti-trust litigation:
Major League Baseball
Don't believe me? Look it up. I couldn't make anything that stupid up.
PS. I am an avid sports fan, but protection for MLB is really stupid. The NBA, NHL and NFL have managed quite well without protection. Heck, the NFL got tagged in the anti-trust suit by the USFL for a whole 3 dollars and they survived!
_damnit_
_damnit_
It's my job to freeze you. -- Logan's Run
Opera.
Netscrape and Exploder are 6 of one and half-dozen of the other. Even Lemming shill publications don't paint the picture any differently.
They're both bloated hellspawn of Mosaic.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Just how would any of Microsoft's OS products benefit from that? Microsoft's OSes tend to be limiting enough by themselves that they seldom exceed the limitations of the current BIOS scheme.
The only real immediate or forseeable impact will be to make AltOS vendors refit their products to catch up with Microsoft's standard du jour.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
16. Can the 32-bit version of Windows Whistler read, write, and boot from MBR disks?
Yes.
So yes, you can happily boot your 32 bit version of whistler with Linux.
As to why the 64 bit version is different, I have no idea. However, I am thinking 64 bit whistler is going to flop anyway, due to lack of decent hardware (for at least 12 months in any case)....
smash
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Why are there so many stupid people... read the article before posting bullshit.
I know someone who is dual booting Linux and Windows XP right now using grub with no problems on ia32, which as the article states it has no problems with...
On the topic of ia64 not being able to dual boot, does any person who would want to dual boot even own one yet? IA64 will mainly be used for servers at least for next few years and so in most (all?) instances won't even be in a dual boot scenario.
Any time Microsoft does something which is an improvement it is an attempt to stifle competition.
.Net, etc. :(
Look at the recent whining regarding
It's just a fact of life, we move on and ignore these people.
Actually, VAX is a hardware architecture, not an OS. Normally, you'd run VMS on it, which I agree was a pretty good OS. But you could also run Ultrix (a UNIX variant) on it. There is a project porting Linux to it as well. But I doubt that you could set up any multi-boot on it.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
Yes, this sucks. I highly doubt there's any good technical reason to go to this other boot record system. Honestly it just seems mean.
/other/ product /less/ attractive.
But it is competitive, not "stifling to competition". A better choice of words would be "stifling to THE competition," similar words, but diametric meanings.
Despite what economics textbooks say, competition isn't a market state, it's a process. When one firm drives another out of business with lower prices (ala Wal Mart), that's competition. When one firm makes its product more attractive than the other guys' to buyers, that's competition.
What MS is doing here is basically an odd case of that second point. By making it more difficult to use their product alongside a competing product, they are (to some degree) making their product relatively more attractive, essentially by making the
For another example, consider if a car maker had a policy that if you used aftermarket parts in significant repairs (eg: new brakes, cylinder heads, etc), it voided part of the warranty. This causes the buyer to lean toward using the dealer's repair services or at least official factory parts rather than (possibly cheaper and/or "better") aftermarket parts. It's not nice, it may actually be detrimental to consumer utility, but it's COMPETITIVE.
MoNsTeR
What are you? EMACS?
Well, none unless one wants to remove many of the more arcane constraints of MBR. Frankly everyone who knows anything about drives and layouts agrees MBR was obsolete over a decade ago and should been retired back then.
Furthermore for most users this won't be a big deal, certianly not for Jane-hobbyist. If you actually bothered to do a bit of research you'll discover that this implementation is fairly backwards-amendable except for some high-end configurations where it's unlikely to be an issue anyhow.
Finally, hard drives retail for ~US$100/20GB, anyone installing XP is likely to be able to pony up the cash. This change won't affect ye olde 486s.
By your logic is any hardware advancement possible or shall the industry remain forever stuck in 1980's technology? At least Apple moved to OpenFirmware along with the rest of the workstation market or is that somehow part of an evil plot too? Ahh, so it's not StUdLy enough for yeah, huh? Luckly you'll be able to change the chrome to a camoflauge background and Matrix-themes to assauge your offended aesthetics. Debunked. Yeah, patching things Baaaaadddd... right. Doi! The market gets what it buys. IS Depts & consumers continue to buy on sizzle & psuedo-feature sets then MS will continue selling it to them. It built a megacompany so they're doing something right.I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Check out hardware prices, and what users were willing or able to pay, and the state of the art at the time, and you'll see that those limitations weren't so arbitrary.
Of course that doesn't make them any less infuriating, but if Henry Ford had tried to design the Model T so that you could easily retrofit disc brakes, air bags, electronically controlled fuel injection, and emission control plumbing, he'd have burned through all his venture capital before he ever got any product out the door.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
How many primary partitions can you have on a SCSI hard drive? How many extended? How many logical in an extended?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
WD drives (but not Maxtor, annoyingly) will take a 10 pin socket (like on serial port header connectors) which will make it easier to get the wire length that you need, but why screw around with printed circuit boards, headers, etc., when you can just solder the other ends to a double-pole, double throw switch?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Actually "...cause more problems than Win2K." makes just as much sense in that context, maybe more.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Ah but there not insisting that a corporation respect competing products. They're asking a MONOPOLY to back down. The anti-trust laws can and will enforce actions such as making MS's next big OS play nice with others. (See the DOJ injunction against IBM for an example)
Is it anti-competitive? Probably. But it's likely to be as successful as MS' attempt to crush us with the DAV protocol. Remember that one? A Linux beta came out the same week MS mentioned it. So screw 'em. What's holding us back on the desktop isn't Microsoft's standards twiddling, it's the fact we can't convince the major vendors to port their apps to X. (Which is a subset of the problem that, for several classes of desktop apps, MS is the only vendor.)
Anyway, it will take a lot more than a partition table format to sink us.
--
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
I hope you're not thinking that Windoz would be better... At least Linux can be trimmed down to a very small amount of code to fit the purpose. If someone is dumb enough to blindly take Linux code and run a Nuke sub or powerplant with it then we are in trouble. I don't think engineers working on this type of equipment are that dumb. Though I have seen the BSOD on way too many non critical devices ( scoreboards, billboards, airline screens, etc ). If engineers are dumb enough to use Windoz on mission critical devices.....
NOW THAT SCARES ME! Oh wait, isn't Bill Gates paying the US DOD to use Windoz on Aegis class ships and a new aircraft carrier? ;)
Time to head for the hills.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Or, indeed, problems such as making sure your cruise missiles don't hit non-combatant's embassies...
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
Prepare for flamage from the UNIX on VAX faction...
Let me help it along:
Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago. Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand, easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines. And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s.
It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming.
With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With VMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if you look long enough it's there. That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there.
- Ken Olsen 1984
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Windows NT's bootloader can pick up a SCSI or other disk driver (.SYS file) from a BIOS-addressable FAT partition and use it to find the OS without using the BIOS. I have a feeling this what the MSR is for, but who knows, especially if there's no DOS-style drive detection.
I think GRUB works in a similar manner to the NT loader. LI(jump to the partition and see what happens)LO is cruder but in someways easier.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
If someone ever fixed PCs so that they had real firmware and you didn't have to play BIOS mindreader to multi-boot, you'd probably feel that swapping disks was kinda a kludgy solution. It's an electronic computer, goddammit! Why should you have to touch it once it's set up?
Anyway, I have a box with 3 SCSI controllers and a bunch of disks on various internal and external chains. I've felt the pain, but it can be made to work (good understanding of various OS boot processes and SystemCommander helps.)
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
From your first link, it looks like the new boot process requires some small partitions (ESP Extensible Firmware Interface System Partition and MSR Microsoft Reserved Partition.)
Shades of the old OS/2 boot manager partition or the EISA Config partition that seemed to confound certain users with itchy FDISK fingers.
Anyway, it's nice to see something that looks like real boot firmware and not a CP/M-compatible kludge. Any hope of support for this on standard IA32 boxes?
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
After the marketing implosion of the PIII CPUID, the BIOS spec was altered so that it provides a unique ID number for each motherboard (which is a better solution than a CPU ID even for the assent management departments that wanted this sort of thing).
This is really nothing new either, custom BIOSes from IBM and Compaq have provided serial numbers for years and years, it's just now a standard call so that Windows can get this info and use it for it's registration voodoo.
Anyway, it's only in the last couple years that PCs have had a GUID number other than the NIC.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Very nice. Got any more from the fireplace series? :) <hopeful look>
Cheers,
Is it your intention to make the Linux community look like idiots? Seriously. You post these half-baked articles so frequently, often incorrect and always misleading, and they always get the community fired up to the point of seeing who can make the dumbest post about something that's not even true.
Not sure how many people here are familiar with it, but it's almost like a digital equivalent of the Phil Hendrie Radio Show. It's a hilarious show, btw, if anyone has a chance to listen to it. He'll have guests on (actually voiced by himself) who make dumb and subtly inflammatory comments, but keeping it halfway believable. So every show, you end up with all these people calling up the show and getting irate arguing with some fictional character. (Hendrie = ./ editors, Guest = story submission, Callers = Linux advocate posters). In both places the comedy comes in large part from listening to or reading the opinions of the idiots who believe what they just heard and subsequently make incredible asses of themselves.
Cheers,
and people didnt see this comeing standard practice make it incompatitable if you dont like your comptition like the word formats keeps linux distros playing catchup and not IMPROVEING but one thing that linux has got is the ability to run on many differant CPU Arch but they are lagging behind come on linus sort out the patchs I only see mr cox doing this (ARM /S390 merges) please this has got to get better
regards
john jones
When you look at other partitioning schemes (such as the RDB system that the Amiga has used since the 80s) the whole MBR/fdisk thing is a complete joke. The anachronistic partitioning system on x86 PeeCees has caused me to waste significant time on something that should be trivial, and there's a whole sub-industry of bootloaders and utilities just to get around the arbitrary limitations that were built in by some visionless idiot in the early 80s.
Dumping it is a good move. And I note that this time (for a change) MS isn't replacing it with a proprietary decommoditized MS-only defacto standard de jour. This one is open and anyone can be compatable with it. What's not to like?
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Until we get mother boards that includes the new EFI approach, we will definetly see transition solutions to support GPT drives.
It will be great to have this technology - sure it will break a lot of the old systems, but then again sometimes when you go forward there are sacrifices to be made.
If MS has decided to limit the addition of GPT support for 64-bit XP, then this is probably because 64-bit motherboards would break most 32-bit OS anyhow, and thus they are unlikely to have people complaing that Windows 98 doesn't work on those machine.
For more info on EFi and GPT, check ou the following link: http://developer.intel.com/technology/efi/download .htm
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I think we need to suspend paranoia mode for a second here.
:)
At the risk of sounding like "user friendly" software, Are you sure?
From the GPT/EFI FAQ:
Each GPT partition has a unique identification GUID and a partition content type, so no coordination is necessary to prevent partition identifier collision.
With a unique identification, is it possible that this could be used for some basic, broken form of DMCA-style "content protection"?
My journal has hot
I'd just like them to stop posting ask /.'s that are obviously flamebait. I mean, even ignoring the fact that this submission wasn't news worthy, (who's going to be running a dual boot on a IA64? And where are they so I can punch them in the face?) It's worded to get the hot-heads going.
/. could go a long way by not baiting the morons out there, But hey, maybe that's what they're after anymore. Maybe prepping for a new fox special they're trying to push, "When Angry, Misinformed, Geeks Attack!!"?
Sorry, your BeOS theory doesn't fly -- the same bug (have to login twice before it sticks) exists under Win2k w/ IE5x as well. Drives me crazy. astro
As stated in the Win XP FAQ, GUID partitioning is a replacement for MBR partitioning that allows more partitions on the disk, of any size, without the silly BIOS limitations. It's a part if EFI, the Extensible Firmware Interface that is replacing the old hairball that is the BIOS. The IA-64 Linux distributions already have a version of LILO that works with EFI.
In short, don't worry, Linux adapts, as it always does.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
I have 2 dual boot boxes running XP Beta 2 and Mandrake 8.0. It's using Mandrake's graphical LILO as a bootloader, and it's working just fine. Is this something that will be "implemented" for the final release of XP?
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
They're generated using the MAC address of your NIC (if one is present); so reading the GUID table would be a way to track computers - an ID like Intel's much disliked CPU ID was.
John 17:20
I for one am very happy about this development, and I hope the MBR system dies a very quick death, no matter how painful. Anything would be better, even if we had to reverse engineer it, which we don't in this case.
I know much more than I ever wanted to know about extended partitions and how to fix them when the chain gets corrupted.
Note that this only applies to the 64-bit (Itanium) version of XP, not the 32-bit.
Just goes to show how many slashbots are ready to flame without even reading the material linked to (about 30% at the time I was reading, comments at +1 and above). That's a scary amount of political power if CmdrTaco is ever looking to mobilize the ignorant forces...
:)
deus does not exist but if he does
Yes.
14. Can the 64-bit version of Windows Whistler read, write, and boot from MBR disks?
The 64-bit version of Windows Whistler can read and write MBR disks, but cannot boot from MBR disks.
15. Can the 32-bit version of Windows Whistler read, write, and boot from GPT disks?
No. The 32-bit version will see only the Protective MBR. The EE partition will not be mounted or otherwise exposed to application software.
16. Can the 32-bit version of Windows Whistler read, write, and boot from MBR disks?
Yes.
Note that this only applies to the 64-bit (Itanium) version of XP, not the 32-bit. Frankly, I wished it worked with the 32 bit version too, since the current MBR-based scheme sucks. Try having FAT + NTFS + Linux + FreeBSD + Plan 9, etc on one disk and you'll wish for something better too.
False. As a monopoly, Microsoft has to be careful that its actions do not act exclude competitors from the marketplace. In this case they deviated from a long-time practise for no other reason than to make things more difficult for its competitors. It took EFFORT for Microsoft to make this change, a change that hardly affects anyone outside of Powerquest, the Linux distributions and the *BSD flavours. It is a clear-cut abuse of their market power, and yet another annoyance we can chalk up to them. But its not so big a deal, because it's a temporary annoyance. Red Hat, Debian et. al. will find some way to deal with it, and things will be back to normal.
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack
i agree that it is the responsibilty of the readers to read the stories, but the editors should bare some of this responsibility also. when you include the following in a story:
Windows XP (Whistler) won't boot from disks with MBR partition tables, requiring a new GUID Partition Table (GPT).
and add no clarification, what do you expect? my inital impression was not good, but i read further befor i started typing. hell, i'm not sure cliff read the entire story either.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
*cough*
It's an Intel proposal for their ia64 architecture (Itanium) for which the Linux port already has patches to handle.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
*cough*
It's an Intel proposal for their ia64 architecture (Itanium) for which the Linux port already has patches to handle.
This does not affect the 32-bit version of XP (which still uses MBR).
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
The MICROS~1 problem is a filesystem of FAT and FAT32. They already "solved" the problem with NTFS. Note that ext2 doesn't have the MICROS~1 problem, so how can it be a partition table limitation?
According to the article, some of the things that GPT will allow are better partition names and Unicode support. Now why we actually need Unicode for partition names is anyone's guess, but if you're gonna do it, do it all the way.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
Not an issue. The 32bit version of XP uses MBR. The Linux-Itanium port supports GPT. Dual booting is still possible for those who are inclined (and have an Itanium).
I wouldn't be too surprised to see a Linux patch (updated utilities) for GPT on ia32 in the future. As long as it's a Linux-only box, you could get rid of the limitations to MBR without having to get an Itanium processor.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
The real question is if Whistler will support more than 26 partitions on a single disk.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
If Microsoft cared about the people using their OS (haha) they would have a version or two which supported both, and then dump MBR later
:-)
Isn't this how we got stuck w/ MS-DOS for so long?
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I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.
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I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.
-- Dr. Seuss
yes, it is possible. and, when you pay for phone service, they also give you a "unique identification" number. this could no doubt be used for some form of DMCA enforcement, somehow. or maybe even personal tracking! quick, run! hide from the government and corporations alike! you have been tagged, numbered, and identified--you have...a PHONE NUMBER!
those cheeky bastards.
sean
I think we need to suspend paranoia mode for a second here. according to the FAQ, the GPT disk partitioning specification is a documented Intel standard. and, really, isn't it about time for the old MBR scheme to die? the architectural limit to 4 primary partitions is getting old. GPT can scale far better and has a less arcane internal structure (cylinder and head arithmetic, anyone?)
and if you read more carefully you will see that it is only the 64-bit version of Whistler that won't boot on MBRs. the 32-bit version should boot just fine.
I think MS is just scaling with their new OS architecture. anything can be viewed through an anti-competitive lense. the important question is: will we be getting a better OS? I think so.
sean
I am not expecting /. to send investigative reporters to far off techie conventions and the like. I just want them to read through an article before they post it. I don't think I am asking too much here. This doesn't really require too much extra money. While I would love real technical editors, I understand that /. may not be able to afford it. I find it hard to believe they can't afford to read an article before they post it though.
/. is trying to manipulate readers with outrageous headlines just to get people to read on. I can't stand when traditional news sources do this and /. is no different.
/. doesn't do it on purpose. Perhaps it is just that their editors don't have the time or money to check stories before rushing them out the door. I just don't understand how someone can read a post enough to believe it is worth an AskSlashdot but not bother to read the article sourced in the post.
/. on the whole. I just think that it could be even better. The only way the powers that be will know that people want change is if they say it. So I am saying it.
What really bothers me is that often it seems that
Perhaps I am just too pessimistic and
Don't get me wrong, I really like
-- soldack
First about this post. As others have commented, this only applies to Windows XP/2002 running on IA-64 processors. All operating systems wishing to boot on these systems will need changes to work with Intel's firmware for IA64 based systems. /. that keeps raising its ugly head. All too often stories are posted that are not checked up on. I understand that those who run /. can not be expected to be experts in everything but stories are often posted that only required a simple reading of a FAQ or two to see that the post is just plain wrong. I had high hopes of /. getting much more professional when it was purchased by Andover. But nothing has changed. The staff seems about the same size and quality that it was before the corporate move. /. really has such great potential. If it could start using expert editors who only post stories that have been properly checked. One reason I love magazines like Discover and Popular Science because the stories are usually checked out pretty well. I understand the need to post things that generate interest but the site also claims to be a news site. No self respecting news site would allow such a low level of checking into the background of the stories they present. Is /. a news site at its heart or just entertainment? It has the potential to be both a high quality and entertaining news site and discussion forum. I understand that /. is a business and the object of a business is to make profits for their shareholders but I don't understand why this has to be in direct opposition to high quality.
/.er who hopes things get better...
This brings a fact about
from a
-- soldack
Doesn't this bring back a flashback to that copy protection scheme they wanted to impliement in all hard drives awhile back? Glad I'm using Linux now...
3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
the GPT is a step to get rid of the one more legacy element in the PC.
Ahh.. Until you actually stop supporting it, an element is not currently legacy. This spec actually wants to make the MBR a legacy element of the PC. This is not necessarily a bad thing but get it right.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Not knowing that much about VMS, but since when was Unix a language??? It's an O/S! Besides, I can almost always find what I need when running my Linux system.
I had WinXP Beta 2 and Debian Linux on my IBM X20 and they dual-booted just fine with LILO. Beginning to think Microsoft isn't the only one spreading FUD around here....
- 17. Can Windows 2000, Windows NT 4, or Windows 95/98 read, write, and boot from GPT?
No. Again, legacy software will see only the Protective MBR.
Note how Microsoft now considers Windows 2000 to be legacy software. That's going to be a big surprise to everyone who is currently running spanking new copies of Win2k.But then again, we are living in the year 2001. Time to throw the old, legacy OS into the closet and upgrade [off-topic rant] to something that maybe, maybe, maybe this time doesn't try to cram every damn unused piece of code into the swap file even when you have plenty of physical memory left (evil ploy to boost hard drive sales resulting from prematurely failing drives!) [/off-topic rant].
You don't need to throughly research the topic. Fifteen minutes of reading the site and doing some quick searches on Google would turn up enough information. Its not like these are minor errors here. These are full blown the article is attributed the wrong meaning errors. These don't take extensive research to catch.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Is it just me, or does anti-MS fud have a fast path to the main page somewhere in the Slash code? I'm still trying to prove that Slash has an anti-BeOS hack that requires Net+ users to type their password twice before the system accepts the login, but my new project is finding the filtering software that gives priority to MS anticompetitive stories. Seriously, though, the volume of traffic on the /. main page isn't that big. Maybe ten stories per day max. You'd think they'd actually check out the stories that make it far along in the submission processes for them to consider posting it.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Outstanding post! For a change we have someone who is an authority on a subject. Someone please mod this up.
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
Of course we dual booted our vaxen - VMS and Unix .... plus we ran Unix and RSX virtually under VMS (sort of a per-process dual booting :-)
Of course, the problem with that is that people will use the old way until its no longer an option.
GTP is a good thing and frankly its not Microsoft's responsibility to worry about linux dual booters. In the long run this will be good for linux, because GTP is far better than MBR which is older than the pyramids. However, in the near term this will be a huge hassel for those who know and love the current configuration of LILO and want to dual boot XP. This will really hit the small developer shop that relies on dual boots for office compatibility.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Converting MBR System Disks for 64-bit Windows Whistler
Partition Manager Help
LILO
LILO mini-HOWTO
Multi-Booting with LILO
Multiple Boot Advice for x86
The Ultimate Windows Whistler News
Usability comparison: Windows Whistler vs. Gnome 1.2, KDE 2.0, Mandrake Update
How to Download YouTube Videos
Mike
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
Microsoft is also making it so that earlier versions of Windows cannot access GPT disks either. This falls in line with comments I've read about MS's biggest competitor being itself (That is, people not having any incentive to upgrade).
d .htm
However, I'm inclined to believe this isn't some Evil Plot (tm) by the Evil Empire to screw us all over. The 32-bit version of Windows Whistler is essentially 'legacy' software in terms of disk support, meaning that it cannot access GPT disks either, and only the 64-bit version uses it. It also seems like a very reasonable precaution to prevent old legacy programs from accessing the new disk structure and messing things up. I'm sure many people, in their early linux-using days, can remember making mistakes with fdisk or a similar utility and wiping their hard drives in the process.
Also, according to the FAQ, GPT will deal with several issues with the current MBR system. Those being extremely large disk support, the "MICROS~1" problem with long/extended character file names, and data integrity.
Furthermore, according to the Microsoft FAQ, the complete specifications are available at http://developer.intel.com/technology/efi/downloa
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
there's a whole sub-industry of bootloaders and utilities
:)
True. But I wouldn't call GPLed software (the bootloader you linked to) part of an "industry". Though, yes, Symantec, PartitionMagic, and a lot of other companies wouldn't exist but for the brain damage in the PC BIOS and DOS and it's decendants (thank god that mess is finally starting to die off - sort of).
I just got a SparcStation5 - yummm... a "BIOS" that can do netbooting, serial console, etc - not to mention a hardware Forth interpreter (!!!).
There was only one real operating system to boot and that was VAX.
Well, first, VAX was a hardware platform and not an OS. Secondly, a "real" system back in the day would probably be either an S/360 (running OS/360), or a cluster of PDP-11s or VAXen, running TWENIX or VMS (repsectively).
As for your sig: lynx? WTF? Even I was around before lynx, when Gopher and Archie ruled the net.
You mean PDP-11s have a network capability? Shit, we have an ancient PDP-11 in the lab and I was thinking about hooking it into the net, but couldn't find any info if it could do it...
AFAIK they couldn't network in the normal sense (beyond terminals, etc), but you could plug several of them together and have them share the workload. Look here for some small confirmation of this, I'm sure other evidence of it can be found.
Though it could only be the later and/or high-end models - we've got an old product announcemnt package for the PDP-11/24 here in the lab, and there's no mention of clustering.
If you could somehow convice a PDP-11 that it was talking with a serial terminal or another PDP-11, when in fact it was talking to something more modern, I guess you could set up some form of networking on it. Heh, TCP/IP over an VT100/RS-232.
.....vax is hardware vms is os........ oh god what a bunch of nerds! Funny funny funny!
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
-Legion
What else is new...It really doesn't surprise me...I wonder though if this project will flop like their trusty Windows ME...Hahaha..Now that was a piece of work...
The article is a bit on the flamy side to bad we can't mark them as such. Reading the faq supprisingly left me with a much different attitude than I went in with. It seems if you are using XP now you can use the XP bootloader in the same way people use the NT boot loader now. This setup should work for 64bit XP and 32Bit XP. If your using 32bit xp it looks like you have a few more options however as it plainly says it can read,write and boot from MBR disks. It doesn't look all that complicated after reading the faq which is pretty straight forward. My only concern is the GUID. While I can't quesion mob mentality I can question why someone didn't read this prior to posting the story as all questions seem to be answered there in black white and blue.
A Social Security Number
if you happen to live in the US anyway!
Your complaints about being offended offend me.
In practice, none, some, or maybe even all of those requirements might be justifiably used on a project depending on many factors (scope, criticality, complexity, etc).
Put that in your pipe and smoke it, AC student person.
XML causes global warming.
36. What is a Microsoft Reserved Partition (MSR)?
The Microsoft Reserved Partition (MSR) reserves space on each disk drive for subsequent use by operating system software. GPT disks do not allow hidden sectors. Software components that formerly used hidden sectors now allocate portions of the MSR for component-specific partitions. For example, converting a basic disk to a dynamic disk causes the MSR on that disk to be reduced in size and a newly created partition holds the dynamic disk database. The MSR has the Partition GUID:
DEFINE_GUID (PARTITION_MSFT_RESERVED_GUID, 0xE3C9E316L, 0x0B5C, 0x4DB8, 0x81, 0x7D, 0xF9, 0x2D, 0xF0, 0x02, 0x15, 0xAE)
*Shiver* <paranoia> Mental note: Do not install XP, for fear of Microsoft gathering information and storing it in a hidden partition.</paranoia>
-Ted
How low can you go? The very name of the standard, "Extensible...", makes the hair on my neck stand up. You can put all your fears into this one.
BIOS extentions break stuff. I've got an Athalon board with virus protection built right in. The stupid thing recognizes LILO as a boot sector virus. I can turn it off, and I'd return it if I could not. The motherboard drivers that came with a couple of computers I've built give me the shudders.
There are two reasons I could care less about this one, however. The first is that there will be work arounds for any software I care about far sooner than for MS BS. The second reason is that I will never ever install MS BS on another computer I own.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
We now have of all things incompaitabilities with Cisco Routers leading IT departments to forbid XP installs. Now we have the Lack of Partionions. Personally I think we should turn the equation arround. Boot Linux standardize on Lilo make the /boot partion reserved and run Micro$oft in a Virtual machine if we must.
Cisco, IBM, Redhat please gang up with LPI and let's just get rid of MSCE and its certified weenies that I have NEVER found to know anything.
IBM, Sendmail and Sun lets run ads like certain green circled softdrinks to get the truth out that Microsoft Exchange is a Virus to make everone run NT/XP even as poorly suited as it is for Oracle and DB2. And unfortunately thats true!
Courts don't work, inteligence doesn't work, lets just make it unhip to run Microsoft products! Microsoft is a drug!
Vista, the single biggest argument for Desktop Linux! It doesn't "Just Work"(TM).
well, it needs work... "... den choo wand ehbee ess edee."
I am writing this from a dual boot WinXP/Mandrake machine. I am using both almost every day and have been for two weeks. No problems.
It's Funny...laugh
--
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Indeed, a simple Google search reveals that the Linux community is on this.
--
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
By making Whistler incompatible with the standard MBR, this could be seen by many as another move to stifle competition in the PC market.
I am so anti-M$ that it oozes from my pores on a daily basis. However, this is the sort of shit that the Free Software® movement needs least! We keep hearkening for Microshaft to drop their FUD campaigns, yet here we have Linux zealots blatently trumpeting the same thing. (Apropos, Cliff, I hear isopropanol does wonders for cleaning FUD out of your horn.)
The MBR-style partition table has been in use for, what, fifteen years? At least? It is a roadblock in the exploding mass-storage market. The entire concept of a maximum of four partitions (there are, after all, only four slots in an MBR partition table) was smoothed out by the molestation^Wchanging of the standard to permit "extended partitions", and within those, "logical drives". However, with hard drive capacities soon to break 100 gigabytes (!), it's high time we, as members of the computing indutry, came up with something better.
I've never heard of GUID partition tables until now, and therefore know absolutely nothing about them; therefore I can't comment on whether or not GPT is truly better. But can anything be much worse than what we're currently stuck with?
--
Come on, you think the slashdot editors were too stupid to read this article before posting it?
Yes, I do. They have made progress toward real journalism. But this is incredibly sporadic. I think in this case Morgan read a tiny snippet of that FAQ, enough to see they would not boot from existing partitions. I think he did not read enough to realize that this was for a good reason, that the new standard is open, or that it only affects the 64-bit platform. I think Cliff read Morgan's submission only and didn't even look at the link.
Looking at the FAQ page linked to, I think this is a false alarm. Microsoft has several legitimate reasons for introducing this new partitioning scheme. It is an open standard; they link to the definition here.
It looks like a lot of the reason they are doing this is support for larger systems and disks. See these Q/As:
Q: If the disk is larger than the maximum size an MBR can report, will the entire disk contents be protected? A:The EE partition in the Protective MBR is specified to be the maximum size allowable in an MBR.
So the maximum size supported by the new format is greater than the old.
Q: Can the 32-bit version of Windows Whistler read, write, and boot from GPT disks?
A: No. The 32-bit version will see only the Protective MBR. The EE partition will not be mounted or otherwise exposed to application software.
This doesn't affect your current system at all. If you install Windows Whistler on your ia32 machine, it will use the old format.
Linux already has the support for many different partitioning schemes. I don't see this as different. There is no support for it now, but there will be when someone decides to develop it.
Um.. are you guys using address http://slashdot.org/ or http://www.slashdot.org/. If the latter then the reason is that redirect is to slashdot.org and cookie is set for www.slashdot.org. It makes me wonder why slash doesn't send domain=.slashdot.org with all cookies?
_________________________
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Spelling and grammar mistakes left as an exercise for the reader.
GPT isn't proprietary, is it? If not, Linux should support it. MBR was a pain, anyway.
Isn't that what the LinuxBIOS project is attempting? http://www.acl.lanl.gov/linuxbios/
XP is nice for novice computer users (XP, the homevariant I mean). It's made very easy for newbies and novices (i.e. almosts every non-tech person ;)) to work with a computer. For a geek a bit too much I think. XP (or win2002) for servers is IMHO very good and except perhaps the price, it will probably pug MS on the servermap for good.
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
I've XP beta 2 and Mandrake 8.0 on one harddrive, and both boot fine, using the nice mandrake bootmenu. So where's the beef?
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
if microsoft tried to discourage people from using linux on their pcs?
Now admittedly, that's 32 bits of 512 byte sectors, which works out to be two terrabytes... the 128 gig limit is due to ATA's definition of LBA being 28 bits, which is due to byte-wide registers for cylinder and sector but only a single nibble for the head, all of which got recycled for LBA, with a then unthinkable 128 gig limit!
Rumor has it (from Hale Landis, a pretty good source) that ATA/ATAPI-6 will allocate 48 bits (somehow?) for LBA numbers. It's gonna be pretty damn hard to fit those 48 bit LBA start and length numbers into the 32 bit wide slots of legacy MBR partition table.
Thus continues the saga of hard drive size barriers and the long PC legacy of kludge upon kludge, 512 megs (CHS bios call), 2 gig (fat16), 8 gigs (kludged CHS bios call), numerous bios bugs along the way... just when it seems like all that's behind us, >128 gig IDE drives will be upon us soon since you can already get SCSI larger than that, and someday two terrabytes hard limit within the partition table will also become an issue. Hopefully by then we'll all have fiber-to-the-home, so it'll be easier to fill up a couple terrabytes with mp3z, p0rn, DivXs, etc.
In an ideal world, one might expect that the PC industry could collectively plan ahead and make a smooth migration to new standardized formats long before the legacy ones how signs of obsolescence... Oh well.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Maybe I'm just a little dense, but I have no idea why this is "from the another-attempt-to-stifle-competition dept." If you can get the specification, how are they attempting to be incompatible?
Look here. More than 4 partitions without hacks like extended partitions..... Personally, I'm looking forward to this becoming mainstream.
--
--
We have fought the AC's, and they have won.
13. Can the 64-bit version of Windows Whistler read, write, and boot from GPT disks?
Yes.
14. Can the 64-bit version of Windows Whistler read, write, and boot from MBR disks?
The 64-bit version of Windows Whistler can read and write MBR disks, but cannot boot from MBR disks.
15. Can the 32-bit version of Windows Whistler read, write, and boot from GPT disks?
No. The 32-bit version will see only the Protective MBR. The EE partition will not be mounted or otherwise exposed to application software.
16. Can the 32-bit version of Windows Whistler read, write, and boot from MBR disks?
Yes.
17. Can Windows 2000, Windows NT 4, or Windows 95/98 read, write, and boot from GPT?
No. Again, legacy software will see only the Protective MBR.
18. What about mixing and matching GPT and MBR disks on the same system?
GPT and MBR disks can be mixed only on 64-bit systems, and the following restrictions apply:
* The Windows Whistler loader and the boot partition must reside on a GPT disk. Other hard disks can be either MBR or GPT.
* Both MBR and GPT disks can be present in a single dynamic disk group. Volume sets can span both MBR and GPT disks, However, the MBR cylinder alignment restriction might cause some difficulties mirroring or striping MBR and GPT disks.
This could be the basis of a copy protection mechanism.
OS boots up and does a simple check:
if(partition.GUID != installed.GUID) abort;
This could be implemented with pretty much any software package, especially with more and more machines coming with the software bundle preinstalled and without the original CDs.
Krishna
--- I'd love to go out with you, but I have to study for a Turing test.
BTW: It says it pretty clearly in the faq, as well.
So it's not a big deal.
No 64-bit 'Whistler' in my future ;)
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Its an open standard. Somebody had to introduce a new partition table design. MS beat linux people to the punch, and its a Good Thing(TM) too.
This support will be integrated into the Linux IA-64 kernel, so it will not be incompatible.
Come on, people. Yes, Linux (The Mob Movement(TM)) is growing (I also think this is a Good Thing(TM), but do you seriously think if we introduced a new partition specification MS would add support?
I don't think so. Not yet, at least.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Why anyone doesn't use them is beyond me.
Really for the average mug, W98 & Office 97 are fine. & using quartedeck or ghost image software you never have to worry about re-installing when things W98 starts to clog up. You just reload the fresh install & apps image. Consequently we haven't needed to upgrade in 3 years & have not spent a cent on new software since 98.
I'm not punishing myself by giving MS more of my money in exchange for the headache of reinstalling another Windows, reinstalling apps, etc. It's crap. I'll do whatever I can to prevent new versions of Windows from entering my workplace (approx 1000 pcs, approx 12 knowledgeable users). There really is NO need for it. I say we all band together and say, Win9x is fine for Gomer. Office97 is fine for Gomer. Only order pcs that work with win9x, order them without the latest stinky version of Windows, ghost them all identically, and leave Gomer alone. Maybe Gomer will learn how to use what he/she has if we leave it alone long enough?
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Claus
Nope, I didn't read throught the article to see that this only applies to the 64-bit version of XP. Nevertheless, I was trying to address the problem of booting independently of MBR in a more general way, which might be of use to the pathetic losers like me who do not yet have an IA-64 laptop.
--
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Even so, I know I have to be ready for the other OS screwing up MBR, so I've got a boot disk ready. This is a perfectly working option for trying out Linux, albeit slower to boot. But it may take time to convince a typical Windows user that floppies still exist and are actively used by many of us... which reminds me, there's always Loadlin.
--
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Ye Gods!! Have you even read the frickin thing? READ IT LUSER! x86 WinXP boots from a MBR, reads a MBR disk, and writes a MBR disk. Try brushing up on literacy and sane thinking before you shit your pants on another M$ rant.
faith (fath)
n.
Remember how they tried to lock samba out of win2k? Well we solved that one... we can solve this too ;)
SSL Certificate
I'll bash Microsoft as much as the next luser, but once again this is FUD spread by Slashdot's inability to read the stories it's linking from.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
with the move towards having EFI as the intermediate between the BIOS and the OS, the GPT is a step to get rid of the one more legacy element in the PC. The MBR is considered a legacy agent, mainly by the fact to get to it, you have to use software interrupts. These are trying to be phased out. Now, with the GPT, you can install as many OSs as you would like, they each just need an entry in the table (which is very easy to do) and a file on the harddrive that actually tells it where to go.
Finally, someone is doing something about one of the crappiest, most anachronistic aspects of PCs: their lame partition table scheme.
*BSD tried, but their partitioning scheme never caught on because it didn't have Microsoft's support.
Besides, someone is working on GPT support for ia64 Linux: look at this message to linux-kernel.
Isn't this the same boot tech that win2k uses (WinNT???)? If so, then it really is no secret that winXP, which is BASED on win2k, is just gonna be a pain in the ass when it comes to any kind of multi-boot configs...
Actually, I have a dual PII system that I've been running a dual config on of win2k and SuSE (I hate NEEDing winblows...)but I leave the floppy in the drive for booting unless I need to boot win2k...I have always wondered why someone hasn't come out with some sort of 'HACK' to fix this particular annoyance...of course, when it gets TOO annoying, I'll probably have to fix it MYSELF- but that's the beauty of OpenSource, ain't it?
Sig currently under construction. Mind the gap....
GUIDs are now generated using an MD5 hash of the old guid scheme (mac address + time).
Of course, this problem can be solved in a simpler way - just put your bootable drive in a drive shell, and switch a Linux shell out of your computer to M$ whenever you feel the need to run Whistler/XP.
I use these at work, and find them great for switching from Win98 to Win2k to WinNT to a different setup of Win98. While I don't know where my boss got our drive shells, a quick Google search turned up this site, whose shells appear similar to ours. If you're paranoid about data security, store it on a drive in one of these shells, and put it in a safe when you're not using it.
Unfortuatly, that's not exactly true. When I was consulting to the IT department of a steelworking company, we would order Win98 machines (as 98 was the only OS our supplier would ship) and then whipe and install Win95. The reason behind it was the version of CA-OpenIngres we were using, along with a custom written app, wouldn't run correctly on Win98. Everything was going fine until some third party bitch was asked to audit our office site license. Apparently, according to the auditors, we were violating license agreement by transfering Win98 licenses to Win95 installations.
The resulting payout the company was forced to do for licenses cost me and a few other contractors our jobs. The budget could no longer afford us. Several other projects got scrapped. Big pain in the arse.
So, according to licenses, you are forced to upgrade. Thought I'd give you a heads up of potential problems you could run into if this is a buisness you are installing the old software on.
--Demonspawn
Kant speel, don't kare.
I have Windows XP and Linux running on the same HD on my laptop, what exactly are you guys talking about?
btw, Windows XP is damn good and so is Rock Linux
Things are much better now. No worrying about OSes trampling the MBR. Hopefully VMWare (or Bochs, *plex, other similar free/open source projects) will continue getting updated to support new versions of Windows.
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I think that this GPT crap is more MS monopolizing evilness. I use a program called Ranish Partition Manager to partition my drives. Using its special IPL it can create as many partitions as you want on a single drive (actually up to 99 i think but what kind of user needs that many?!?) They all appear as primary partitions if you go to FDISK and I've had no problems with it so far on my drive.
14. Can the 64-bit version of Windows Whistler read, write, and boot from MBR disks?
The 64-bit version of Windows Whistler can read and write MBR disks, but cannot boot from MBR disks.
15. Can the 32-bit version of Windows Whistler read, write, and boot from GPT disks?
No. The 32-bit version will see only the Protective MBR. The EE partition will not be mounted or otherwise exposed to application software.
16. Can the 32-bit version of Windows Whistler read, write, and boot from MBR disks?
Yes.
So this really applies only to the 64-bit version - the 32-bit version won't even support GPT drives.
55. Is it possible to make a sector-by-sector copy of a GPT disk?
No. The Disk and Partition GUIDs will no longer be unique. This must never happen. You can make a sector-by-sector copy of the contents of ESP or basic data partitions.
Perhaps I misunderstand - I assumed the the GUIDS would be unique per installed OS, not unique per user. What possible reason could there be for this other than uniquely identifying users? Am I missing something? (probably).
If you had real computing problems to worry about such as soviet missle trajectory prediction, then you wouldn't even think about booting into multiple operating systems.
-vax computer, vi, lynx. 'nuf said
I dual-boot fine with Slackware and XP, with LILO in the MBR, Slack is on a seperate drive(though there is a small ext2 partition for storage on the XP drive) but I have LILO installed in the MBR of the drive which XP is on because it is the first drive, and it boots to either XP or Slackware without trouble, all I have to do is re-install LILO whenever I install a new build of XP by using the slack CD to boot and run LILO...
Microsoft is betting the farm on this one. We either kill linux on the desktop or it kills us!
The truth shall set you free!
How typical this is of M$. Take something that is useful and should have been done a while ago (changing the MBR)and then slip something nefarious in (GUID!) for the bargain.
I could see a company selling a premade version of this.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
And couldn't it be designed to utilize infinite bitness? Haveing maximum size and positioning coordinents seems like the same short sighted thinking that created the MBR system in the first place. Right now we are around 2^27 if you assume 1K sectors for simplisity. According to moores law be should exceed 2^64 sectors in 60 years. By then it should be so entrenched in system that it would cause more problems than Win2K. Let's do our great great grandchildren a favor design the thing right.
I've XP beta 2 and Mandrake 8.0 on one harddrive, and both boot fine, using the nice mandrake bootmenu. So where's the beef?
Well, you missed what was said about only the sixty-four bit versions of XP having a problem. Read above posts. But I'm very interested in what you as a linuxer (ie computer god) think about XP. Will you reply with some thoughts?
~
Thanks. I was thinking something along the lines of http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/guide/featu res.asp though, to see what the big deal is. From that, it doesn't seem worth beans.
~
I know a work around will make it out there, but this really sucks. One of the reasons I picked up a monster HDD was to limit swapping drives when I was coding or gaming.
Anyhow, the real problem is laptops.... I did get some removable drive mounts for my primary box, but right now I am sitting in the living room with my laptop. No removable drive options here.
In the end, it might not matter (for me)... as long as a Win2K service pack does not add this "feature" somewhere down the line.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
I wonder about the physical punishment a drive in a pullout box takes, though ... does it result in reduced lifespan?
Don't use Microsoft products.
it's been working out great for me.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
boot floppy.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
When I was younger, I thought putting a few OS's on the same hard drive should/would be a snap. But little did I know the enemy MBR was silently laughing in my face! My eyes were opened when I tried to get LILO to boot NT, win9x, OS/2 and Linux all on the same HD. I learned about MBR alright! I then added more HD's and learned about Master, secondary Master, slave and more MBR issues! I learned about hardrive jumpers and why I would need tweasers to install a hard drive! Ever since, I have been trying to figure out who invented the whole MBR thing and SHOOT THEM. The next thing that has to go is master/slave nonsense on HD's.
I miss the Karma Whores.
Well, first off, I don't think anyone capable of running today's Linux distros will have much problem jumpering a drive to slave, dropping it in and plugging in two cables. I can't see it taking very long for someone to get a multiboot manager working, even if it requires a patch to XP's boot sequence.
MBR has been a thorn in the side of OS development ever since people wanted to create more than 4 partitions, and has also chronically stood in the way of hard drives' exponential capacity growth. It has been begging to be replaced for years, and I'm glad someone is finally doing it.
they looose 150$ for every Xbox selled so if you build an farm of xBoxes and put linux on that thing you have an advantage coze if you buy 300 xboxes you steal 300x150 =45000$ directly from M$ house If you happen to render some movies for a film you need 3d power horses like nVidia have yet another steal. Xbox is a good thing cozze you could build cheaper an cluster. Let's do something nasty for M$$ Corp.;)
developer http://flamerobin.org
FUCK MICROSOFT FUCK ASSHOLE GATES FUCK Windows XP FUCK THEM ALL. THE BIGGEST BUNCH OF OUT AND OUT WANKERS IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. SCREW THEM.
I think I now have a reason to dump Windows. They have gone TOO FAR with this one. Thank you
Yes, because you'd have to emulate the /entire/ 8086 environment perfectly for it to work. And then it would be useless to the rest of the system. XFree86 has been working on emulating that real mode on x86 with limited success.
this starts to describe the capabilities and usefullness of OF.
Non of the above OS will run on Itanium, *anyway*, you know!
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Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
Oh, that is GPT. Oh, well...
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Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
The FAQ says that only the 64-bits versions of Whistler will require GPT to boot from, 32-bits versions of Whistler will use the normal MBR.
(Qoute)
15. Can the 32-bit version of Windows Whistler read, write, and boot from GPT disks?
No. The 32-bit version will see only the Protective MBR. The EE partition will not be mounted or otherwise exposed to application software.
(/Qoute)
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Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
It'd be nice if they bothered to add that this 'undocumented' and 'broken' practice is exactly how disk signatures and dynamic disks are implemented in Windows 2000. (And maybe previous versions of NT, I'm not sure)
-Jade E.
Uhmm... *checks his winXP/Slackware dualboot system* Odd, works just like dualbooting a Win2k/Winnt system.
On the one hand, we have graduate students from various universities, industrial and academic researchers, and industrial software developers. On the other hand, we have some nebulous people deep inside the bowels of some defense, medical, and aerospace contractors that have been writing "life-critical systems" for decades. The kind of people who managed to blow up the Osprey and the Ariane in software and punch holes into patients with radiation machines. They use and create low-volume, proprietary software with little or no peer review. A review of the kinds of blunders these professionals make shows that there are quite a few bad apples in the bunch and just leaves people scratching their heads. So, no, it isn't obvious to me that the "amateur" open source code is any worse in principle than the professional code.
Off-the-shelf Linux itself is probably not a good choice for "life-critical systems" because it wasn't developed with that goal in mind. I'd still trust it more than some of the supposedly "reliable" proprietary systems being sold. If you wanted to make Linux truly reliable, you would probably start by throwing out 90% of the drivers and other extensions and carry out a lot more additional code review and testing. In userland, you'd also limit yourself to a small set of very strictly tested tools.
More generally, however, given the same goals and the same resources for testing and development, I'd trust the open source community considerably more to develop reliable and safety critical systems than a bunch of proprietary professionals: I think the open source community has better people in it, and the open source process brings more resources to bear on code review and bug fixing.
Ok, it might cost a little more, but I have found that having a pull out bay to be a much better alternative than a boot manager. One drive for *nix and the other drive for Windoze. Just pop in the drive for the OS you want. It does suck though for people that can't afford or want this alternative.
Microsoft tries everything possible to discourage the casual user from picking up Linux and installing it. Don't be surprised if they put up a page saying "Linux will ruin your WinXP installation"
Anyone serious enough to get a separate drive and swappable bays, etc. is not going to be foiled by this trick, but it's not meant for them.
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Stay in school, kids! Peace out, Dubya
apart from the people who use *nix, there are a lot out there who only use mutliple versions of MS stuff (Win9x/Me/2000). If MS pisses off these people who *like* using their products then it makes the open source stuff look even more attractive.
I'll think of a funny sig later on
it's plainly obvious that a lot of people didn't actually do any kind of research on this before actually getting the flamethrowers out and aiming for Redmond. GPT isn't an MS spec. They are just implementing it. LILO supports booting from GPT disks. Plus it's only an issue with 64bit XP. How many people are gonna be messing with multi-booting OS's on expensive Itanium boxes? It's not an issue.
/. and Linux advocacy like organised religion of the very very worst kind.
But yet I see many posts from Linux zealots kicking the shit out of MS once again. Do those people look before they cross the road? I'd hope so. So why can't they extend that and look around for the REAL information before posting another round of MS bashing.
Taco isn't your god. Stop treating
I love Linux as much as the next guy, but the idiots you see that think they are promoting it....*shudder*
- 'sup, G?
Isn't this only 4 the 64bit whistler?,,,I doubt there will be many dual boot 64 bit whistlers:)
Intel's Extensible Firmware Interface specification contains the spec for GPT. All systems incorporating EFI (currently, this is only IA-64 systems) need use GPT, for others it is optional.
I wrote the Linux IA-64 kernel GPT support, and it has been included in the IA-64 kernel port since September 2000. It allows use of either MBR-style or GPT-style partition records per disk. With minor tweaking, it could be used on Linux IA-32, but it is not currently.
Boot loaders such as LILO remain unaffected. LILO takes a file system location (i.e. /boot/vmlinuz), from which it asks the kernel for the physical location of that file on the disk (i.e. where in /dev/sda is the file?). The file location is entirely independent of the partitioning strategy, thus LILO works with both MBR-style and GPT-style partitioning. Linux IA-64 uses its own boot loader (elilo.efi) which again does not need to be aware of the partitioning strategy of a given disk.
Partitioning tools such as fdisk and GNU Parted need to become GPT-aware. I have created a patch for GNU Parted and have made it available to the IA-64 distributions. It could use a bit of cleanup, but is quite functional. I don't believe that anyone has written GPT support into fdisk, and would encourage anyone who wishes to please do so.
I've also written a new Linux IA-64 application "efibootmgr" which manages the EFI Boot Manager options (as defined in the EFI spec above). This tool is both MBR and GPT-aware, and allows for booting your OS off of any disk/partition in your system provided the partition contains a FAT-12,-16, or -32 file system. Additional work will go into EFI in the future to add ext2 file system awareness to avoid even this restriction.
All of these topics have been discussed on the Linux IA-64 developer mailing list. If you care to join the Linux IA-64 developer community, please see www.linuxia64.org.
Microsoft may be making it difficult for folks to install multiple OSes on their single HDD machines, but just about every distribution of Linux out there, as well as FreeBSD, and BeOS will allow booting from a floppy disk. Though booting would work, I'm not so sure about how well the new GPL file system will take to being resized.