Created attachment 156626 [details] Small enhancements to the EFI image generation This is a rather silly patch (and untested since I don't use EFI on the desktop I run FreeBSD on) to enhance the current EFI Fat image: 1- Enlarge the boot image to make it match the size of an older 5 1/4" floppy. More space won't hurt and it seems better to use a somewhat "standard" size, 2- Set the OEM label to "MSWIN4.1". This is the recommended value in "Microsoft Extensible Firmware Initiative FAT32 File System Specification": "There are many misconceptions about this field. It is only a name string. Microsoft operating systems don’t pay any attention to this field. Some FAT drivers do. This is the reason that the indicated string, “MSWIN4.1”, is the recommended setting, because it is the setting least likely to cause compatibility problems. If you want to put something else in here, that is your option, but the result may be that some FAT drivers might not recognize the volume. Typically this is some indication of what system formatted the volume." I doubt either of these has any effect nowadays, and I won't feel offended if the patch is rejected, but it may be better to adopt such changes earlier rather than later.
WRT the FAT image, 800K is indeed too small, but what we really need to do is start running newfs_msdos on the EFI partition at install time so that it's 200MB and has enough room for dual-boot cases etc. This should really happen for 12.0, and I'd rather avoid proliferating different sizes.
Created attachment 192400 [details] Small enhancements to the EFI image generation Update for new path and other changes.
(In reply to Ed Maste from comment #1) Well, it's rather silly but I wanted to keep some standard floppy size (perhaps 1.44M ?). What would be really cool is if there were some way to install the Clover EFI bootloader: https://sourceforge.net/projects/cloverefiboot/ This would be really useful for those of us that still keep an old BIOS machine with an under-utilized 3T HD and want to dual boot.
Hi Pedro, It's only seen 3 years of deliberation, but I'm going to go ahead and reject this PR to ease your clearly worried mind. =) We plan to evict boot1.efi{,fat} soon, so I think it's not worth worrying about anymore. Thanks, Kyle Evans
(In reply to Kyle Evans from comment #4) Heh ... and as I wrote .. "I won't feel offended if the patch is rejected" :).