Re: MILO

[Nikita Schmidt <cetus@snowball.ucd.ie>]

On Friday,  4 Sep, Jean-Paul Blaquiere wrote:
> I know it is possible to create an SRM bootable milo, but I'm lost as to how
> to do it?
> any pointers?
> 

MILO itself *is* SRM bootable, the only thing that is missing is the
bootblock, which can be created in a variety of ways:
 - if your MILO resides on a FAT filesystem, use `srmbootfat' from
   genie.ucd.ie;
 - if you want MILO on an ext2 partition, use `ext2markboot' from aboot;
 - if you really like the old milo.dd, use arch/alpha/boot/tools/objstrip
   from your kernel build tree like this:
	objstrip -v -p milo mboot
	cat mboot milo > milo.dd
   (substitute your actual MILO image file name for `milo' here).

I don't distribute milo.dd because of several things.  Firstly, it may
create false impression that MILO for SRM and MILO for ARC are
different, while in fact the only difference is in the middleman, which
is linload.exe for ARC and bootblock for SRM.
Secondly, it's much neater to have MILO on a real filesystem rather than
as a raw image at the beginning of a partition that renders the whole
partition practically unusable.
Thirdly, milo.dd is dangerous: if you write it into the first sectors of
your harddrive so that SRM can boot it, you'll lose your partition
table.

> i have an AS 255/233 (avanti)  currently working with milo 2.0.31, and kernel
> 2.0.34.  it works, mostly, with the occasional alignment traps, but a more
> recent one would be nice.

Is it one of my milos from genie?  If so, you won't see much difference
in the new set on an AS 255...

Nikita