switching between SRM and ARC/AlphaBIOS (was Re: Iprobe anyone?)
nshimizu writes:
> The only machines I have which have SRM on them are AS200 4/100 and Multia.
> Both are now setting to load MILO on the booting up. If I can use Iprobe
> on EV4, I will re-install Linux. But if it does not work on EV4, it will
> be wast of time.
>
Going away from the original topic, a remark, you do not need to
reinstall anything to switch between SRM and ARC/AlphaBIOS. You just
need to convert the partition table.
To go from PC to BSD disklabel use for instance:
#!/bin/sh
sfdisk --dump /dev/hda | perl -e '%id=(5 => 0,6=>0xe,82=>1,83=>8); while (<>) { if (m|^/dev/hda(\d+)\s*: start=\s*(\d+), size=\s*(\d+), Id=\s*(\d+)$|) { print "sdisklabel /dev/hda ".($1-1)." $2 $3
$id{$4}\n";}}'
This output a list of commands needed to create the equivalent BSD
partitions.
The reverse should be also quite simple.
You can also use a PC partition with SRM by just booting on a floppy.
AND EVEN BETTER, you can use PC partitioning on a SRM-bootable disk with a
small trick:
use only primary partition 1 and 2, primary partition 3 and 4
will be almost completely overwritten by zeroes for the SRM stuff
(that does not limit the number of partitions as P1 or P2 can be an
extended one). You need a special srmbootfat/swriteboot that will
arrange that the proper 0xAA55 magic number is written at the end of
the boot sector while still preserving the right checksum SRM checksum.
This setup is working here and I can switch without trouble between
AlphaBIOS and SRM, hope to merge that one of this day in the
installation stuff.
Loic
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