Re: Installing FreeBSD 9.1 amd64 on IBM x3550 M3

On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 11:43:55AM -0800, Kevin Oberman wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 9:58 AM, Panagiotis Christias
> <p.christias@noc.ntua.gr> wrote:
> >
> > I suppose trying an 8.3 installation would be the easiest way to use MBR
> > instead of GPT, right;
> 
> That would do it, but 9.1 is perfectly happy doing MBR. It's just not
> the default.
> 
> Seems like many BIOSes assume that GPT=uEFI. Clearly this is silly, but...
> 
> I know Lenovo laptops have this problem and it is VERY annoying. I run
> FreeBSD on a GPT disk on my ThinkPad, but I have booteasy installed on
> an MBR disk (which contains W7) and my BIOS is set to boot from that
> disk.BootEasy then will boot up the GPT disk with FreeBSD.

Doesn't GPT start with an MBR covering the entire disk? How feasible would
it be to tweak that MBR so that a boot partition was listed in it? Say, a
partition holding the root filesystem could be listed in both the GPT and
MBR style. Then a disk could be booted with MBR or GPT at the whim of the
firmware.

I agree that this BIOS=MBR/UEFI=GPT assumption is pure rubbish. I've got
machines with this documented restriction and I'd love a way around it.
-- 
Kevin P. Neal                                http://www.pobox.com/~kpn/

Seen on bottom of IBM part number 1887724:
DO NOT EXPOSE MOUSE PAD TO DIRECT SUNLIGHT FOR EXTENDED PERIODS OF TIME.
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