Re: Linux not adhering to BIOS Drive boot order?

[David Balazic]

David Woodhouse wrote :
> [e-mail] said:
> > we need some kind of signature being written in the drive, which the 
> > kernel will use for determining the boot drive and later re-order 
> > drives, if required.  
>      
> > Is someone handling this already? 
>     
> It should be possible to read the BIOS setting for this option and
> behave accordingly. Please give full details of how to read and interpret
> the information stored in the CMOS for all versions of AMI BIOS, and I'll
> take a look at this.

To mount the right partitions , refer to the by the volume label or
UUID.
( read the mount and fstab man pages for more info )

This work after the root-fs is already mounted.

Currently ( AFAIK ) the root-fs can be specified only as a major:minor
pair ( and maybe also as a "/dev/hdxx" string )

Once I wrote a patch that allows specifying the root-fs by
UUID or volume label. It is available at
http://linux-patches.rock-projects.com/v2.2-f/uuid.html

It is for 2.2.x kernel , since nobody seems to be interested in it.

As for the "device nodes are assigned to disk devices almost randomly"
problem : I complained about this years ago , but nothing happened.

If someone knows a way to reliably find a certain partition ,
regardless of the (non)existence and position of other partitions
and disks in the system , short of scanning the contents of all
available
partitions , please tell me.

Party on !
-- 
David Balazic
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"Be excellent to each other." - Bill & Ted
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