From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Aug 22 01:08:45 1995 Return-Path: hackers-owner Received: (from majordom@localhost) by freefall.FreeBSD.org (8.6.11/8.6.6) id BAA12416 for hackers-outgoing; Tue, 22 Aug 1995 01:08:45 -0700 Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by freefall.FreeBSD.org (8.6.11/8.6.6) with ESMTP id BAA12406 for ; Tue, 22 Aug 1995 01:08:42 -0700 Received: from msmith@localhost by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.6.9/8.6.9) id SAA26301; Tue, 22 Aug 1995 18:14:45 +0930 From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199508220844.SAA26301@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: Using space in a DOS filesystem To: bde@zeta.org.au (Bruce Evans) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 1995 18:14:45 +0930 (CST) Cc: hackers@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <199508220729.RAA28551@godzilla.zeta.org.au> from "Bruce Evans" at Aug 22, 95 05:29:12 pm Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1211 Sender: hackers-owner@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk Bruce Evans stands accused of saying: > >But if the slab _is_ the boot device, how do we read the tools from it? > > With difficulty. Don't boot from it. That more or less rules that approach out completely. We're trying to do an ersatz partition that can do everything a "real" partition does. That's going to have to include booting. > It would be relatively easy to check the partition once you have located > it. You might be able to boot from the DOS file system, run some > utilities, mount an mfs root and create vn devices on it, mount the vn > file, and chroot() to a nicer file system. I don't want the utilities > for this in the kernel. I can understand that. How would you feel about being able to recognise one of these ersatz partitions if the info were passed in to the kernel at bootstrap time? > Bruce -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and [[ ]] realtime instrument control (ph/fax) +61-8-267-3039 [[ ]] My car has "demand start" -Terry Lambert UNIX: live FreeBSD or die! [[