Re: MILO size problems
On Thu, Mar 02, 2000 at 10:31:21PM -0500, David Huggins-Daines wrote:
> (Cc: back to debian-boot, debian-alpha, hope that's okay)
> Christian Meder <meder@isr.uni-stuttgart.de> writes:
>
> > On Tue, Feb 29, 2000 at 10:35:35AM -0500, David Huggins-Daines wrote:
> > > Because we *need* to ship that version of MILO, I fear we'll have to
> > > go back to my system of creating separate MILO/linload.exe images (we
> > > can of course make them significantly smaller than 1.4M :)
> >
> > If we can't tweak our kernels to fit we've got to go that road.
>
> Yeah - also see the bug I filed - we really should have the de4x5
> driver compiled in. Actually I notice that my 2.2.15pre12 kernels
> aren't terribly large (, and they might almost fit
>
> I'm going back to the separate MILO disks (which are now 720k images,
> since MILO is only 450k or so - it should work fine since FAT12 is a
> pretty dumb filesystem). However, I've parameterized the set of
> architectures for which we build rescue disks - the "small" set is
> generic and jensen (because it appears that the generic kernel has
> some problems on Jensen). If you want to build the full set, with
> MILO on the rescue disks you can say:
>
> make alpha_reduced_rescue_set=NO write_milo=YES build_milo_disks=NO
OK.
>
> By the way, it *is* necessary to install the System.map, otherwise
> procps and some other things complain at you.
Ah, an explanation finally ;-)
> > Is there anywhere a document on the current status of SRMs for the
> > different subarchs ? Which platforms are still depending on MILOs ?
>
> >From what I've been told, XL is the only architecture that has no SRM
> available. I've put a pointer to the firmware updates page on
> Compaq's website in the install documentation.
So what's the correct way to boot an XL into Linux ?
> The cases where MILO is still useful are (and I guess this should go
> in the documentation) where the user:
>
> a) is dual-booting with NT on a half-flash machine
>
> b) is dual-booting with NT from a single disk on a full-flash machine
>
> c) is reinstalling onto a DOS-partitioned disk with existing
> partitions
>
> d) has a half-flash machine and doesn't want to reflash their
> firmware (or has a full-flash machine and can't figure out how to
> switch to SRM from AlphaBIOS :)
This should definitely go into the Alpha install docs.
> > > One other thing to mention: if we are going to provide
> > > subarch-specific kernels (the only machine that really needs this in
> > > order to boot is Jensen), then we should also provide kernel disks for
> > > DP264 and Nautilus, particularly since I've added them to the list of
> > > subarchitectures in the documentation :)
> >
> > The 2.2.14 alpha images were built by myself because Herbert didn't
>
> I guess the bug that I filed against them (the de4x5 driver isn't
> built in - it really needs to be) goes to you then :)
>
> > build them for quite some time after the i386 release. DP264, Nautilus
> > and book1 didn't compile so we left them out. Like I said above
>
> Ah, yeah, nautilus and dp264 both need some patches, which will be in
> 2.2.15.
But potato will use 2.2.14 presumably.
> But I would really rather go with the generic kernel only for
> SRM boots (except on Jensen) because it saves a lot of space, and it
> looks like we're telling people to recompile their kernel after
> installing anyway.
I always thought that we _don't_ want to urge them to produce their own
kernels (the Debian kernels should work in most circumstances).
> For woody I'd really like to do something like Red Hat does where it
> detects if your machine is SMP, except for alpha subarchitectures,
> then installs the proper kernel after the initial boot (policy be
> damned :)
Why don't we provide a generic-smp boot floppy set. Besides 2.2.14 already
provides a smp kernel package so you got the chance to install it yourself
after the initial installation.
Greetings,
Christian
--
Christian Meder, email: meder@isr.uni-stuttgart.de
What's the railroad to me ?
I never go to see
Where it ends.
It fills a few hollows,
And makes banks for the swallows,
It sets the sand a-blowing,
And the blackberries a-growing.
(Henry David Thoreau)
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