Windows XP and Incompatibilities with Multi-Booting? 201
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?
Why would you want to dual boot a server? (Score:1)
Re:one reason behind GPT (Score:1)
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!
Re:one reason behind GPT (Score:1)
Re:Would it really be that suprising... (Score:2)
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.
Re:one reason behind GPT (Score:1)
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Oh, give me a break. (Score:2)
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.
I feel... (Score:2)
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.
Less fear is required. (Score:5)
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).
Read the fscking article before you post!! (Score:1)
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_
Bzzzzt... wrong again. (Score:1)
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_
Re:Would it really be that suprising... (Score:1)
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.
Re:This is no accident... (Score:1)
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.
only the 64 bit version.... (Score:1)
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
Read the damn article (Score:1)
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.
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:2)
Look at the recent whining regarding
It's just a fact of life, we move on and ignore these people.
VAX (Score:2)
definition of "competition" (Score:2)
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
"How do you feel about it?" (Score:1)
What are you? EMACS?
Re:Typical M$ Bullshit (Score:5)
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.Re:Good for Wintel! (for a change) (Score:2)
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.
Re:KILL THE MBR! (Score:2)
Re:Why not use the ultimate dual boot system? (Score:2)
Re:GPT is too MS specific (Score:2)
Re:Would it really be that suprising... (Score:1)
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)
Not a big worry (Score:1)
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.
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Re:Not to worry, GUID is here for a good reason. (Score:2)
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
Re:Bagh humbug... (Score:3)
Re:Bagh humbug... (Score:1)
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
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Re:GPT = Good, MS still = scary (Score:1)
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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Re:Pull out drive (Score:1)
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.)
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Re:Information (Cutting through the Jargon Fog) (Score:2)
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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Re:GUIDs are trackable to your machine (Score:2)
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.
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Re:Works for me. (Score:1)
Very nice. Got any more from the fireplace series? :) <hopeful look>
Cheers,
Ask Slashdot (Score:5)
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,
oh what a surprise (Score:1)
Good for Wintel! (for a change) (Score:5)
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 [xosl.org] 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?
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Bye Bye BIOS, hello EFI (Score:3)
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 [intel.com]
Re:not so fast (Score:2)
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"?
Re:editing of slashdot (Score:2)
Re:What monkeys are running this show? (Score:1)
Not to worry, GUID is here for a good reason. (Score:5)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
GUIDs are trackable to your machine (Score:1)
Good-bye MBR (Score:1)
I know much more than I ever wanted to know about extended partitions and how to fix them when the chain gets corrupted.
Re:Read the article, people! (Score:5)
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...
:)
Read the article, people! (Score:5)
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.
Re:Not to worry, GUID is here for a good reason. (Score:1)
'amateur code' indeed.
Re:Not to worry, GUID is here for a good reason. (Score:1)
Re:Would it really be that suprising... (Score:2)
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.
bad reporting. (Score:2)
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
Re:VAX (Score:2)
Except for those who ran Unix on it. In fact, for a long time, the Vax was the dominant platform for running Unix, so much so that it even got made into one of the C commandmants [dorje.com] that not all the world's a Vax.
Re:Not to worry, GUID is here for a good reason. (Score:1)
it doesnt matter how you design stuff...if you dont have time to implement it properly your commercial software will suck. it doesnt matter if you have roadmaps documentation, bug lists or any other crap. your time to implementation will govern how your final output works.
unfortunately very few commercial vendors have either the time or inclination to let their software teams work at the optimum pace -- 7 lines of code or less per day. thats the speed which mission critical systems (think space shuttle control code or aircraft control code) are written at. and dont tell me that youre willing to let your programmers code only 7 lines of code per day.
Re:This is no accident... (Score:1)
It's an Intel proposal for their ia64 architecture (Itanium) for which the Linux port already has patches to handle.
Re:Shooting themselves in the foot - again (Score:1)
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).
Re:A few things from the article (Score:1)
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.
Re:Good Bad and Ugly (Score:1)
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.
The real question (Score:2)
Re:one reason behind GPT (Score:1)
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.
Re:not so fast (Score:4)
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
not so fast (Score:5)
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
Re:editing of slashdot (Score:2)
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
editing of slashdot (Score:5)
This brings a fact about
from a
Re:Not to worry, GUID is here for a good reason. (Score:2)
Linux has its (many) uses, but it's still not the be-all-and-end-all of operating systems.
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Re:What monkeys are running this show? (Score:2)
What monkeys are running this show? (Score:3)
Dual booting ... (Score:2)
Re:one reason behind GPT (Score:2)
Good Bad and Ugly (Score:2)
Information (Cutting through the Jargon Fog) (Score:5)
Partition Manager Help [www.uv.es]
LILO [appwatch.com]
LILO mini-HOWTO [linuxdoc.org]
Multi-Booting with LILO [wwnet.net]
Multiple Boot Advice for x86 [aol.com]
The Ultimate Windows Whistler News [ultimateresourcesite.com]
Usability comparison: Windows Whistler vs. Gnome 1.2, KDE 2.0, Mandrake Update [newsforge.com]
Re:128 Gig Limit... Coming Soon To Your Neighborho (Score:2)
Mike [goingware.com]
Flamy article. (Score:2)
GPT = Good, MS still = scary (Score:2)
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
nice troll (Score:2)
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.
Re:I've come up with a solution (Score:2)
It's Funny...laugh
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Re:editing of slashdot (Score:2)
Slashdot isn't the NYTimes, which "pronounces" truth to the masses, nor does it need to be. Nor would most of us want it to be. Nor could it be. Get over it.
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Re:one reason behind GPT (Score:5)
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Come on, Cliff! (Score:2)
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?
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False alarm... (Score:2)
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 [intel.com].
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.
GPT isn't proprietary (Score:2)
Huh? Mandrake boots fine from the same disk (Score:3)
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128 Gig Limit... Coming Soon To Your Neighborhood (Score:2)
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.
What's the big deal? (Score:5)
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 [microsoft.com]. More than 4 partitions without hacks like extended partitions..... Personally, I'm looking forward to this becoming mainstream.
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Re:editing of slashdot (Score:2)
OK, you really do have a valid point, but the fact the /. doesn't have a great deal of money to do this sort of stuff. I guess it would be possible to break up the submission process. Say, one person filters out the goat sex crap, passes up what's left to a team of others, they filter out the crap and pass it to someone to do source checking.
Taco could ask the community to pitch in, were he so inclined. Personally, I take every thing I read with a grain of salt. If a story impacts my work directly, I will source check as much as I'm able, be it the New York Times, The Register, SlashDot, Live 5 News, or NEWS 4 U. (gag).
this applies to 64-bit only (Score:3)
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.
I don't care. (Score:2)
Re:one reason behind GPT (Score:3)
Laptop users & boot floppies (Score:3)
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.
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Read the fscking article (Score:2)
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.
one reason behind GPT (Score:5)
Re:The real question (Score:2)
While apparently yes, why would you need more than 1 partition per MS OS? And why wouldn't you need more than the latest and greatest MS OS on your system. (recalling a certain comment about 604K)
Why I can see the benefit and logic to expanding and changing out the partition system. Anything with MS finger prints makes me glad I am getting better with *nix boxes. not prejudiced, of course, just my opinion based on the past track record. Of course you could put any partition system you want on a box, or make one up. The question is what would run on it.
It would be cool if the *nixen could read all partition systems, instead of locking one out of one system vs another. Of course it is just easier if you have a 64 bit OS to deal with a 64bit file system, instead of having to be completely backwards compatible. Less work.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip
Re:I kept my Windows 95 CD (Score:2)
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.
Bagh humbug... (Score:3)
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.
Why not use the ultimate dual boot system? (Score:3)
I could see a company selling a premade version of this.
Re:one reason behind GPT (Score:2)
I havn't been following this issue closely enough so I can't day with authority that Microsoft made an affort to keep this change in their OS quiet, so as to make it more difficult for other OS providers to accomodate it; although that wouldn't suprise me at all...
--CTH
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two words (Score:2)
KILL THE MBR! (Score:2)
Not a terrible problem (Score:2)
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.
Did you *read* the FAQ? (Score:2)
(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)
who do you trust? (Score:2)
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.
Linux IA-64 kernel and GNU Parted both support GPT (Score:3)
Intel's Extensible Firmware Interface specification [intel.com] 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 [linuxia64.org].