Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 3 Mar 2009 23:23:29 +0000 (GMT) | From | Etienne Lorrain <> | Subject | [ANNOUNCE] Gujin bootloader version 2.5 |
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There is a new version v2.5 of Gujin at http://gujin.sf.net with some bugfixes and improvement, like:
- Installer and boot code can be fully recompiled on 64 bits OS PCs, no 32 bits libraries needed.
- support for FAT+ISO filesystem on the same device, so that you can transform an ISO image (by "./instboot boot.bin easypeasy-1.0.iso") to a superfloppy to boot (for instance) an EeePc from USB thumb drive or SD card. Some old EeePc may need an upgrade of their BIOS. Note for this one that there is a problem in the automounter of most Linux distribution and the resulting window appearing at device insertion shall never be used (unless you see the boot.bio file). With such a modified easypeasy-1.0.iso, the ISOLINUX is still used, Gujin just simulate the BIOS disk converting reads of different sector size - more info in install.txt and "./instboot -h".
- EXT4 is (partly) supported (if constant inode size), that part still need improvement but works for me.
- more real mode segments are defined so that other people can add code easily.
- When installing and asking to build a bootable FAT filesystem (complete initialisation of a floppy or a thumb drive), support added for FAT32 and autoselection of FAT12/FAT16/FAT32. When using FAT32, you cannot use the IDE interface to load the second stage bootloader (space restrictions in MBR). Nothing is changed to *probe* FAT32 filesystems, just stage 2 loading. The installer also try (by default) to align the data clusters of the FAT generated to the cluster size for performance reasons. The FAT32 filesystem checks good with another OS "chkdsk.exe" and obviously with Linux "fsck.vfat".
- installer support /dev/mmcblk0, and /dev/mmcblk0p1 names as target (SD card)
- some changes to EDID detection, is it working better for everybody?
- The toolchain I use (GCC + Binutils + GMP + MPFR) can be generated by "make toolchain". I have compiled using GCC-4.2.4 to get a better code size and execution speed, but I tested the newer GCC-4.4 and it is working without known problem.
- CC, GCC and CFLAGS variables can be used on the make command line
- started but not finished support for GRUB_MULTIBOOT
I hope I did not create any regressions, at least I did not found any...
Note that the code to simulate floppies in Gujin can convert sector sizes in between 512, 1024, 2048 and 4096 bytes/sector, and can be tested by creating a bootable DOS filesystem image (of a floppy) named DOS.BDI on a CDROM and booting it using Gujin, but that part is not new in this version. I still did not test 4096->512 conversion, if someone has a 4096 bytes/sector HD, that could now be tested...
Have fun, Etienne.
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