Re: [PATCH] ntldr support

[Robert Millan]

On Wed, Aug 05, 2009 at 07:35:32AM +0200, Christian Franke wrote:
> Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko wrote:
>> On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 9:27 PM, Robert Millan<...> wrote:
>>   
>>> After thinking a bit about this, I don't think we want this command in
>>> its current form.
>>>
>>> The problem is it is misleading.  It leads the user to think it can load
>>> ntldr as a standalone file, but in fact it is reading the PBR behind the
>>> scenes.
>>>
>>>     
>> I don't think it's of any problem since ntldr uses this PBR only as
>> superblock to identify the partition. As such I would rather consider
>> this loading as a special case of passing $root, just the form of it
>> is a bit weird
>>
>>   
>
> Agree.
>
> A 'ntldr' or 'chainloader --ntldr' command is not mandatory. But it is  
> 'nice to have' because it allows to boot even if the boot code (6  
> sectors) in the area behind the PBR is not present for whatever reason.  
> See my previsions mail with the test case.

Ok.  Should we settle with 'ntldr' or 'chainloader --ntldr'?  In either case,
we should try making them share the code (with ifdef trick if necessary), but
I'm not completely sure.  Will users be confused if they put ntldr in an
unrelated partition and try to boot their Windows using it?  If ntldr may
hang or crash because of it, then I would go for 'chainloader --ntldr' and
if it fails with a nice error then 'ntldr'.

Thoughts?

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."