From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Nov 24 18:38:46 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1C31516A40F for ; Fri, 24 Nov 2006 18:38:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Received: from harmony.bsdimp.com (vc4-2-0-87.dsl.netrack.net [199.45.160.85]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8C18C43D49 for ; Fri, 24 Nov 2006 18:38:02 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by harmony.bsdimp.com (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id kAOIaDIp041279; Fri, 24 Nov 2006 11:36:13 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 11:36:57 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <20061124.113657.1723938840.imp@bsdimp.com> To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, aag.lists@gmail.com, olli@lurza.secnetix.de From: "M. Warner Losh" In-Reply-To: <200611161457.kAGEvp3F068251@lurza.secnetix.de> References: <2f3a439f0611160556o6e643561sf45bccab2ad769ad@mail.gmail.com> <200611161457.kAGEvp3F068251@lurza.secnetix.de> X-Mailer: Mew version 4.2 on Emacs 21.3 / Mule 5.0 (SAKAKI) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-2.0 (harmony.bsdimp.com [127.0.0.1]); Fri, 24 Nov 2006 11:36:13 -0700 (MST) Cc: Subject: Re: Ramdisk support X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 18:38:46 -0000 In message: <200611161457.kAGEvp3F068251@lurza.secnetix.de> Oliver Fromme writes: : Aditya Godbole wrote: : > Oliver Fromme wrote: : > > I don't know u-boot. What is that? : > : > u-boot is a bootloader popular in embedded systems. : > Its often used with Linux. : : I see. Is it PXE-compliant? If so, you can use FreeBSD's : PXE bootloader (/boot/pxeboot) for loading the kernel. In : that case you can also load the root FS image as a separate : file, so there is no need to hack it into the kernel binary. : : As far as I know, there is no official support for loading : a FreeBSD kernel directly, without using the FreeBSD boot : loader. : : By the way, why don't you simply mount the root FS via NFS? : Is the NIC not supported? What NIC is it? This sounds like it might be a port to a new platform. I ran into exactly this issue when porting FreeBSD/arm to the AT91Rm9200. I needed a ram disk to run out of because at the time I barely had serial console support working, let alone network. The boot loader I had groked these things. And pxe was nowhere to be found. In time, I wrote a network driver, then an SD driver and someone else wrote a the usb glue so I had a lot of choices, but in the early days, all I could use was a ram disk... Warner