making a resc+drv disk for alpha

[Kristoffer.Rose@ENS-Lyon.FR]

Dear all,

Sven Rudolph wrote:

> In order to build the rescue/driver disk you usually need a
> kernel-image*.deb. How did you build this? Do have them for other
> architectures too?

It is not very difficult to build a resc+drv disk image for Alpha.  there
are two ways: either you get the patches by Loic Prylli for the
boot-floppies package at <URL: http://lhpca.univ-lyon1.fr/axp/debian.html>,
or you follow the easy steps below for putting a new kernel onto an
existing disk image.

1. Make sure your kernel has the `loop' and `msdos' file systems in it.

2. Compile the kernel that you wish to go in the disk image, say it is
   called `/vmlinux.gz' with modules in `/lib/modules/2.0.34'.

3. Make a copy (with cp) of the old disk image onto, say, `/tmp/resc1440'.

4. Mount the rescue image with

	# mount /tmp/resc1440.bin /mnt -t msdos -o loop

   Now you can look at the contents of the disk.

5. Copy the desired kernel and modules onto the disk image.

	# cp /vmlinux.gz /mnt/vmlinux.gz
	# tar -cz -f/mnt/modules.tgz /lib/modules/2.0.34

   (exploiting that tar will strip the leading / off paths :).

6. Unmount the disk image with

	# umount /mnt

7. Post a message to debian-alpha@lists.debian.org with 

   a. the ftp address of the created resc1440.bin image, and
   b. the .config file with which the kernel was generated.

   Then maybe we can put together an archive, making debian useful on as
   many alpha variants as possible...

NB. The above procedure will only make the disk bootable for ARC/AlphaBIOS
based systems.  I don't know whether such a disk will boot off an SRM based
system (what digital calls a "unix" system, sic :).

Cheers,
	Kristoffer

-- 
Kristoffer Høgsbro Rose, Ph.D., prof.associé  <Kristoffer.Rose@ENS-Lyon.FR>
Laboratoire de l'Informatique du Parallélisme  équipe PLUME, bureau LR5-026
Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon; 46, Allée d'Italie; F-69364 Lyon 07 cedex
phone: +33(0)4 7272 8642; fax:...8080    <http://www.ens-lyon.fr/~krisrose>


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