• Blog
• 2006-07-16

2006-07-16

Thoughts on EFI and NetBSD

So, there needs to be a loader application.

basic features

• similar to what the mbr(8) and boot(8) code do now
• resides in the EFI system partition
• loads kernels out of system partition, root file system or kernel partition
• provides a way of selecting kernel and pushing options at it

MORE STUFF!

• some EFI-related "stand" code already exists for the NetBSD/ia64 port
• how to know which partition contains the kernel (if kernel isn't on EFI system partition)

  • per-PartitionTypeGuid vendor-specific Attributes

  • seperate partition with unique GUID for the kernels (perhaps SysVBFS)
• GUIDs for the various NetBSD-specific slice types need to be created (ones without an embedded MAC address would be optimal)
  • FFS1/FFS2
  • LFS
  • RAIDframe
  • SysVBFS
  • unknown
• partitioner for GPT

• http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2006-January/060135.html