In article <20060509055420.GE17851 bcd.geek.com.au>,
Daniel Carosone <dangeek.com.au> writes:
>
> On Tue, May 09, 2006 at 12:36:40AM -0500, Frederick
Bruckman wrote:
>> Seems like the way to go?
>
> Yes, that or using the boot_cd9660 functionality (which
is missing a
> couple of details, like working 'ls' from the
bootloader prompt, but
> is perhaps likely to be more MI). It seems likely
we'll need a mix of
> both.
I should point out that my succesful test (of hard disk
emulation)
used NetBSD-2.1 "fdisk" and
"installboot". The "dev" and
"ls" seem
to be broken with the current bootblocks, no matter the
device.
> That's enough to get a kernel loaded, and have a
functional filesystem
> to mount as root (rather than needing an md image in
the kernel).
That sounds nice. [Everyone should realize that that's not
what
"hard disk emulation" does at all. HDE only
works for BIOS INT 13
mode, so to NetBSD, it's basically a giant floppy.]
> What I'd also like to see, regardless of how we get to
this point, is
> using the init.chroot functionality to allow a kernel
with very small
> md root image, perhaps loaded via some media that might
include a
> floppy, to then use some other media (non-bootable CD
or USB stick,
> NFS, etc) as root to load additional binaries and
continue the
> install/rescue/whatever process. =20
>
> This would mean that the "install image"
filesystem and the "method of
> booting it" need not be so tightly coupled as
they are now. Perhaps we
> then may not need to duplicate so much of the install
media for
> distribution, including also offering useful
opportunities for sharing
> on the "multi" CD/DVD images.
Why do we need any md image at all? Can't you just set the
build-time default in the bootblocks (in the tiny emulation
image) to ISO boot?
Frederick
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