Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> On Mon, 2004-12-06 at 02:42, Chad Perrin wrote:
>
>>I'd only heard of those specific "bugs" to which I vaguely referred
>>being associated with Fedora. There are many others I'd heard of being
>>assocaited with other distributions.
>>The fact that I only heard that about Fedora Core 2, by the way, is
>>probably based on the facts that Fedora is extremely popular and that
>>particular problem was a major critical failure for a lot of people.
>
>
> The "bug" is with select BIOSes, not Linux 2.6 or GNU parted. The fact
> that Linus & co. and the GNU parted team decided to stop trying to have
> the Linux kernel "assume" LBA geometry and go on the actual
> _specification_ is what instigated the issue anew. The "bug" affects
> _any_ distro installer that uses the combination. No matter how many
> times people stated it was affecting _all_ distro installers using the
> kernel 2.6 / GNU parted combination, people kept calling it a "Fedora
> bug."
>
> Furthermore, if you had such a buggy BIOS and tried to dual-boot a DOS
> version of Windows, you'd have the same issues. That's because
> DOS-based Windows _must_ match the BIOS geometry, NT does not. Adding
> to the issues is the popularity of 33GB+ drives, compared to just a few
> years ago. Heck, even different version of NT dual-booting on the same
> system could conflict. It's really a larger issue with the legacy,
> "basic disk" that doesn't offer a means to store the assumed geometry of
> an OS.
One question:
What the heck does this have to do with the fact that I hear more about
bugs commonly attributed to other distros than about bugs commonly
attributed to Fedora?
One answer:
Nothing.
>
>
>>The two things combined to turn the whole deal into a pretty
>>well-traveled complaint. That doesn't mean that people aren't also
>>constantly complaining about "bugs" they associate with other distributions.
>
>
> The problem is this bug affects Fedora Core 2+, Mandrake Linux 10.0+ and
> SuSE Linux 9.1+ because it's not a "distro bug," but a combination of
> specific implementations of software. Furthermore, the root cause isn't
> the combination, but the rare systems with the buggy BIOSes. This
> combination was just the first to expose it.
>
> Linux 2.4 "guesses" what the geometry is. This is typically done by
> trying 255/63 heads/sectors, the typically LBA assumption by NT. Linux
> 2.6 / GNU Parted follows the spec -- too closely. And now all those
> buggy BIOSes are no longer accommodated.
>
>
One question (repeated):
What the heck does this have to do with the fact that I hear more about
bugs commonly attributed to other distros than about bugs commonly
attributed to Fedora?
One answer (repeated):
Nothing.
I think I'm done with this branching of the thread as well.
-- Chad ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
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