Re: AlphaBIOS/SRM
>>> Nikita Schmidt said:
>
> It's not that SRM understands disklabels - in fact, it does not understand
> any partitioning scheme, - but rather that SRM boot block conflicts with
> the DOS partition table so SRM can't boot from a DOS-partitioned disk.
Well, I believe that SRM does understand the BSD-style of partition table,
or at least enough of it to find out where the bootstrap really is. The BSD
partition table format includes fields that describe where the bootstrap
starts and how long it is, fields that the DOS partition table lacks. When
last I knew, the TRUE64 bootstrap image was not laid out on disk in the same
way as the LINUX one, but it certainly is true that the DOS partition table
conflicts with where those bootstraps are typically placed. And yes, SRM
does not need or care to know about the partitions, it is only concerned
with the bootstrap location information.
> > If you do not want to convert your partition table you can boot from
> > floppy.
>
> Or network, if available.
Yes! Please don't forget about BOOTP, it comes in *very* handy for testing
kernels on secondary boxes, since you don't have to make a floppy or copy
it to hardisk first. To get a BOOTP image, simply do "make bootpfile" after
the "make boot", and then use arch/alpha/boot/bootpfile as the BOOTP image.
--Jay++
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Jay A Estabrook Alpha Engineering - LINUX
Compaq Computer Corp. - MRO1-2/K20 (508) 467-2080
200 Forest Street, Marlboro MA 01752 Jay.Estabrook@compaq.com
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