From owner-freebsd-hackers Thu Sep 24 23:13:40 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id XAA04484 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Thu, 24 Sep 1998 23:13:40 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from word.smith.net.au (castles360.castles.com [208.214.167.60]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id XAA04470 for ; Thu, 24 Sep 1998 23:13:37 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mike@word.smith.net.au) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.9.1/8.8.8) with ESMTP id XAA00505; Thu, 24 Sep 1998 23:17:50 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mike@word.smith.net.au) Message-Id: <199809250617.XAA00505@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0.2 2/24/98 To: Luigi Rizzo cc: tlambert@primenet.com (Terry Lambert), drussell@saturn-tech.com, jflowers@ezo.net, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Booting from NT ? In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 25 Sep 1998 04:51:26 +0200." <199809250251.EAA11481@labinfo.iet.unipi.it> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 23:17:49 -0700 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > > Note that the use of the NT boot loader simplifies this, since it can > > have a very large boot image that it loads from (see the handbook). > > i wonder just how large... because if it can contain a full kernel one > can simply construct a boot made by a small relocator and a regular > kernel. You could take the BTX loader (not BTX itself) and use it for this; see src/sys/boot/i386/btx/btxldr. It's fully relocating and just generally super-wonderful. You'll possibly need to fake up some of the bootinfo struct though. You could also get away with the new bootloader, which could easily grow an NTFS filesystem module, and could be loaded in the fashion described above. > > The real pain here is that FreeBSD won't boot on a pure read-only > > file store without modification (the existance of which was posted > > about several times by the ROM/FLASH people). > > uh ? booting the kernel obviously works because i have done it reading > from a CD or the network -- and a readonly root also seems to work, > because I have been using diskless with a readonly root for a long time. Terry is quite fond of the myth he puts forward above, despite the fact that many people over the years have proven that FreeBSD runs quite happily from readonly media (me too). -- \\ Sometimes you're ahead, \\ Mike Smith \\ sometimes you're behind. \\ mike@smith.net.au \\ The race is long, and in the \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ end it's only with yourself. \\ msmith@cdrom.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message