Difference between revisions of "Talk:PreDesktop Area"
(just a placemark for future discussion) |
(More ideas (or should I say: fantasies?)) |
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| − | More interesting than removing the HPA (which includes a.o. Acces IBM Predesktop Area, some other tools and a backup of the pre-installed OS) would be to use this area for GNU/Linux too. At least, removing the HPA only saves 3,5 GB on my 60 GB hard disk. It would be worth a try to see whether the backup of the pre-installed OS could be replaced by a backup of your favourite GNU/Linux distribution. | + | ==Use the HPA for GNU/Linux?== |
| + | More interesting than removing the HPA (which includes a.o. Acces IBM Predesktop Area, some other tools and a backup of the pre-installed OS) would be to use this area for GNU/Linux too. At least, removing the HPA only saves 3,5 GB on my 60 GB hard disk. It would be worth a try to see whether the backup of the pre-installed OS on the largest PSA could be replaced by a backup of your favourite GNU/Linux distribution. | ||
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| + | Elaborating on my ideas a few days later, I'd guess the following could be tried: | ||
| + | * see whether GRUB can be made to boot the Predekstop area (I guess by "chainloading" the bootsector of its PSA). Right now GRUB refuses to load sectors outside the partioned area. I've got absolutely no idea if it's possible to write a hack to overcome that restriction. Need to cotact the GRUB people about that ... | ||
| + | * write a HPA or SPA driver. That driver should provide something like "/dev/hpa", "d/ev/hpa0", etc or "/dev/spa", "/dev/spa0", whatever. The idea here is be that it allows you to simply mount (ro!) the Hidden Protected Area (given the correct BIOS settings). Probably just an addaption of the current drivers for (IDE?) harddisks. (This might mean"/dev/hda" and "/dev/hpa" overlap: dangerous?) That would probably need - way - more coding skills than I have ... | ||
| + | * write some userspace tools for the HPA/the SPAs (things like: dumpbeer, printDoS). | ||
| + | |||
| + | It should be clear these are basically random ideas. Still feedback would be appreciated ... | ||
Revision as of 09:18, 15 March 2005
Use the HPA for GNU/Linux?
More interesting than removing the HPA (which includes a.o. Acces IBM Predesktop Area, some other tools and a backup of the pre-installed OS) would be to use this area for GNU/Linux too. At least, removing the HPA only saves 3,5 GB on my 60 GB hard disk. It would be worth a try to see whether the backup of the pre-installed OS on the largest PSA could be replaced by a backup of your favourite GNU/Linux distribution.
Elaborating on my ideas a few days later, I'd guess the following could be tried:
- see whether GRUB can be made to boot the Predekstop area (I guess by "chainloading" the bootsector of its PSA). Right now GRUB refuses to load sectors outside the partioned area. I've got absolutely no idea if it's possible to write a hack to overcome that restriction. Need to cotact the GRUB people about that ...
- write a HPA or SPA driver. That driver should provide something like "/dev/hpa", "d/ev/hpa0", etc or "/dev/spa", "/dev/spa0", whatever. The idea here is be that it allows you to simply mount (ro!) the Hidden Protected Area (given the correct BIOS settings). Probably just an addaption of the current drivers for (IDE?) harddisks. (This might mean"/dev/hda" and "/dev/hpa" overlap: dangerous?) That would probably need - way - more coding skills than I have ...
- write some userspace tools for the HPA/the SPAs (things like: dumpbeer, printDoS).
It should be clear these are basically random ideas. Still feedback would be appreciated ...
