ISC dual boot (bootmenu)

[Gordon W. Ross]

In article <1879 at chinacat.Unicom.COM> chip at chinacat.Unicom.COM
(Chip Rosenthal) comments about bootmenu:
>[...]  I think it's fdisk replacement is a bit crude, but the
>package is functional.  On the other hand, it really gives you full
>access to the fdisk table and I have tried it under both XENIX and
>DOS.  (The DOS binary was generated by SCO's cross compile stuff.)
>-- 
>Chip Rosenthal  512-482-8260  |
>Unicom Systems Development    |    I saw Elvis in my wtmp file.
><chip at chinacat.Unicom.COM>    |

I wrote the bootmenu and pfdisk package, and yes, pfdisk has a very
simple line oriented command language, but for good reasons.  First,
pfdisk is a tool one seldom uses, so there's little motivation to
expend the effort to give it a flashy, full-screen user interface.
Secondly, I wanted to be able to use its output as an ASCII record
of the fdisk partition table.  The saved output from pfdisk (from the
"list" command) can be used to re-create a partition table.  Lastly,
the simple I/O model allows pfdisk to be easily embedded in a script.
(It has built-in help too.  What more does one really need?)

The reason I needed to write a replacement for fdisk was to simplify
replacement of the fdisk boot code without smashing the partition table.
Features I decided to include are:
	Set boot menu names (when new boot code is in use)
	Compatibility with old fdisk (old boot code in use)
	Complete control over fdisk table contents

So now, when I turn on my computer, it asks:

	1 MS-LOSS
	2 Minix
	3
	4 ESIX
Boot partition? (1-4) 

I'm happy!
-- 
Gordon Ross	(gwr at world.std.com)