/usr/mdec does get a whole 3 words in hier(7). (-:
Is there no mention of mdec in the #NetBSD Guide?
Hmmm.
This looks like another thing in chapter 22 that needs fixing.
If you pass a NetBSD person at all, please tell them that someone has some improvements to the Guide for them.
* http://jdebp.info/FGA/BSDs-for-Linux-users/guid-partition-table.html
/usr/mdec is, where traditionally boot code is found. I suspect that NetBSD devs are so steeped in tradition that nobody ever stepped back and asked themselves if this shouldn't be explained.
> http://jdebp.info/FGA/BSDs-for-Linux-users/guid-partition-table.html
Thanks for this. That will come handy when (in the next months) various BSD VMs go onto my VM server.
In fairness, it is explained. It is explained in boot(8). The fun part is that the explanation there is as out of date as the #NetBSD Guide is. And of course there's no clue even to look at that manual page in the Guide.
@JdeBP @glitzersachen it's worth volunteering that boot(8) is one of several man pages I was scrutinizing to try to figure out how any of this worked, and it did help me eventually figure it out, but slower than it probably should have. There's several bits of NetBSD terminology (like primary vs secondary boot programs) that weren't obvious in how they mapped to terms like EFI.
Would reading some proposed #FreeBSD doco help?
* http://jdebp.info/Proposals/freebsd-boot-manual-page.html
I wrote that for someone who observed that man boot was xyr goto, and it didn't exist on non-x86 architectures in FreeBSD.
I also wrote it up in a different way. The boot(8) manual for non-x86 was written to be an overview and pointers to other manual pages. The FGA is a slightly different approach.
http://jdebp.info/FGA/freebsd-boot-process.html
There are similar ideas on #NetBSD , although the names of things aren't the same. The FGA touches on the multiple stages thing. The reality of course is tha most of that goes away with #EFI.
Good heavens!
That is amazing.
I'll see what I can do likewise for the first section on "installing the boot manager", then. (-:
In case you didn't spot it with diff, there are a handful of lines at the top that are there to define a non-standard character entity that the #NetBSD Guide has that WWW browsers do not. They make it viewable on the WWW with a plain browser, and aren't meant for the #NetBSDGuide.
Now I have to update the Proposals page!
As threatened, I've started on that section. It turns out that it is secretly two sections. Who knew? (-:
@MaddieM4 , would this have helped? I've tried to get the primary/secondary thing in and some clues to where the relevant manual pages are.
http://jdebp.info/Proposals/NetBSDGuide/chap-misc.xml#chap-misc-bootmanager
