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Date: Wed, 21 Aug 1996 11:19:26 -0400
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To: Bill Paul <wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu>
From: dennis@etinc.com (Dennis)
Subject: Re: Making Bootable Disks
Cc: hackers@freebsd.org
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>Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, Joe Greco had 
>to walk into mine and say:
>
>> > As Dennis wrote:
>> > > 
>> > > Is it outlined/described anywhere how to make a bootable system floppy? 
>> > 
>> > disklabel -Brw fd0
>> > newfs ... /dev/rfd0a  (look into /etc/disktab for the options)
>> > mount /dev/fd0a /mnt
>> > cp /kernel /mnt
>> > umount /mnt
>> 
>> With all due respect Joerg, that's nice but not very useful :-)  The kernel
>> alone will take 2/3 the floppy.
>
>If you're willing to blow the money on a second floppy, you can make
>a two floppy set (boot and root disks).

The system has to boot without human intervention.....

>
>Create two disks with UFS filesystems on them, put the kernel on one
>and /sbin/init and whatever else you can manage onto the other one
>(crunchgen would be useful if you can't fit all the tools you want).
>
>Compile the kernel with:
>
>config 	vmunix 	swap generic
>
>instead of
>
>config	vmunix	root on wd0 (or whatever you normally use).
>
>(Yes, I know it's shown as 'config kernel ...' in the standard
>config files. I don't care about any damn trademarks: god intented
>the kernel image to be called vmunix and that's what I'm bleeding
>well going to call it. So there.)

Sounds like a man with little to lose :-)

>
>To use this, put the kernel floppy in the drive, start the system, and
>use the -a option at the boot prompt:
>
>Boot: -a
>
>The kernel will load, go all the way through the autoconfig phase
>and then present you with a prompt that says:
>
>root device?
>
>When this prompt comes up, remove the kernel floppy, put in the root
>floppy, then type 'fd0' as the root device:

Can this be done automagically on a dual floppy system...if you cant squeeze
it into 1?

Dennis
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