IBM 600E laptop installation

[Hiten Pandya]

Matthew Dillon wrote:

:When did we significantly change from the FreeBSD boot loader, and does it
:intersect with this time frame?  I suppose I can install 1.0A and update,
:though it'll take a looong time on an older laptop like this.
    It was between 1.0A and 1.2, but when I'm not sure.   The problem is
    that the BIOS lies about what memory is available.  The boot loader
    tries to use the memory, and things blow up.  Trying to figure out
    what memory the boot loader can or cannot use is a hit-or-miss 
    proposition.  What will work on one computer will not work on another.
    The problem is compounded by FreeBSD's original boot loader design,
    the 'BTX' junk, which tries to create a generic operating environment
    (including changing the vector table) for the various boot loader
    stages.  The forth code doesn't help matters, either.  It just makes
    things even less understandable.

					-Matt
	Can we not just adopt some other boot loader which doesn't make
	such pathetic predictions ?  Somehow, the idea of heuristical
	decisions at boot stage are really not pleasing. :-)
				-Hiten
				hmp at xxxxxxxxxxxxx