Re: Killing off the boot sector (was: [STATUS 2.5] January 8, 2002)

John Bradford (john@grabjohn.com)
Wed, 8 Jan 2003 21:23:33 +0000 (GMT)


> Can we *please* kill off the stupid in-kernel boot sector?
>
> Here is a patch that guts it to print an error message. It's even
> tested.

> -# This procedure turns off the floppy drive motor, so
> -# that we enter the kernel in a known state, and
> -# don't have to worry about it later.
> -# NOTE: Doesn't save %ax or %dx; do it yourself if you need to.
> -
> -kill_motor:
> -#if 1
> - xorw %ax, %ax # reset FDC
> - xorb %dl, %dl
> - int $0x13
> -#else
> - movw $0x3f2, %dx
> - xorb %al, %al
> - outb %al, %dx
> -#endif
> - ret

Shouldn't that part stay, incase somebody boots a machine from a
floppy, and leaves it running for hours?

> + .ascii "Direct booting from floppy is no longer supported.\r\n"
> + .ascii "Please use a boot loader program instead.\r\n"
> + .ascii "\n"
> + .ascii "Remove disk and press any key to reboot . . .\r\n"

Couldn't you put an ASCII penguin in there? :-)

John.
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