Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 15:37:07 -0500 (EST) From: Andrew Gallatin <gallatin@cs.duke.edu> To: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: Matthias Buelow <mkb@mukappabeta.de>, "alpha@freebsd.org" <alpha@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: HEADS UP, floppy installs desupported for 5.0 (fwd) Message-ID: <15816.11251.598960.561263@grasshopper.cs.duke.edu> In-Reply-To: <XFMail.20021105152500.jhb@FreeBSD.org> References: <3DC81868.9080700@mukappabeta.de> <XFMail.20021105152500.jhb@FreeBSD.org>
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John Baldwin writes:
>
> On 05-Nov-2002 Matthias Buelow wrote:
> > John Baldwin wrote:
> >
> >> This is what we do already. Even i386 now uses 3 floppies to install. The problem is
> >> that a really, really stripped down 5.0 kernel still doesn't fit onto kern.flp with the
> >> loader.
> >
> > Why can't it span several floppies, then?
> > I don't know the innards of the boot-loader being used but
> > where's the problem simply printing a "insert next floppy" when
> > loading from one floppy is done, and continue reading the kernel
> > with the next floppy? A similar things is being done with mfsroot
> > anyways, isn't it? Why should the capacity of a floppy disk
> > restrict the size of kernels being booted?
>
> We do not currently do this with the mfsroot, it all fits onto
> mfsroot.flp. As I said earlier, someone did write and commit
> code for a "splitfs" fs to the loader so that it can do exactly
> this, but no one has played with getting the scripts to use that
> feature.
I think you may be misunderstanding. I think what is being suggested
is 4 separate fs's.
floppy 1 contains: /boot/loader /boot/loader.rc
floppy 2 contains: /kernel.gz
floppy 3 contains: /modules/foo..
floppy 4 contains: /modules/morefoo
The loader.rc would look like this:
echo \\007\\007
echo Please insert Kernel floppy and press enter:
echo \\007\\007
echo Please insert MFS root floppy and press enter:
load -t mfs_root /mfsroot
This means serious diddling with the twisty mess of ${TARGETS} in
/usr/src/release/Makefile, if anybody interested in floppys is up for
it.
I'm not really interested in floppy installs, so I'll bow out here and
leave it to the intersted parties.
Drew
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