Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sat, 19 Aug 2023 18:02:40 -0700 | Subject | Re: [PATCH 04/17] x86/boot: Remove the 'bugger off' message | From | "H. Peter Anvin" <> |
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On 8/18/23 06:44, Ard Biesheuvel wrote: > Ancient (pre-2003) x86 kernels could boot from a floppy disk straight from > the BIOS, using a small real mode boot stub at the start of the image > where the BIOS would expect the boot record (or boot block) to appear. > > Due to its limitations (kernel size < 1 MiB, no support for IDE, USB or > El Torito floppy emulation), this support was dropped, and a Linux aware > bootloader is now always required to boot the kernel from a legacy BIOS. > > To smoothen this transition, the boot stub was not removed entirely, but > replaced with one that just prints an error message telling the user to > install a bootloader. > > As it is unlikely that anyone doing direct floppy boot with such an > ancient kernel is going to upgrade to v6.5+ and expect that this boot > method still works, printing this message is kind of pointless, and so > it should be possible to remove the logic that emits it. > > Let's free up this space so it can be used to expand the PE header in a > subsequent patch. > > Signed-off-by: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org >
Good riddance.
Acked-by: H. Peter Anvin (Intel) <hpa@zytor.com>
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