Re: problems making own boot-floppies for MegaRAID

[Rory Campbell-Lange <rory@campbell-lange.net>]

Hi Chris

Thanks for your reply, and the pointer. I've been using the potato
docs!

However I'm still stuck. I still don't know if my 1.5M kernel will work
on the rescue floppy. The rescue floppy can't be more than 1.44M, not
so? Help!

Thanks
Rory

On 29/12/01, Chris Tillman (tillman@azstarnet.com) wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 30, 2001 at 02:09:34AM +0000, Rory Campbell-Lange wrote:
> > I need to make my own boot-floppies to install Debian on a new Dell
> > Poweredge server. 
...
> > Problems:
> > 1)  My kernel is 1.5M, larger than a floppy! Won't this be a problem?
> > 2)  Can I somehow mount the boot disk image without putting it on a
> > 	floppy and mounting that, to do the kernel image swap? (I'm trying
> > 	to do as much of this as possible away from the office, sshing in!).
> > 3)  Although I've installed the boot-floppies package (and deps) on my
> >     potato server, I can't find the promised docs.
> 
> In the link in my sig, you'll find instructions for kernel compiling
> in the last chapter, 'Post Install' But there are about 5 forward
> references from other sections to that one.

Entries from the install manual are indented:
	The boot-floppies package contains all of the source code and
	documentation for the installation floppies.

Mmm. Still can't find any boot-floppies docs.

	If you find it necessary to replace the kernel on the rescue floppy,
	you must configure your new kernel with these features linked in,
	not in loadable modules:

Fine. Done all this.

	Download a set of boot floppies: root, rescue, and driver disks...
	One reason to use the compact set, for instance, is that it has only
	1 driver disk and your custom kernel will likely have all the
	drivers you need built in...copy your custom kernel to /mnt/ linux.
	Next run the script rdev.sh which resides in /mnt, which assumes it
	will find the kernel as described here.

I guess I can't do the manipulation of the compact images without first
writing the compact set to some floppies, mounting these and editing the
contents of the disks. HOWEVER: will my 1.5M file fit in the 1.44M
space? 

	Now you can umount your disk image and burn your floppies.

Surely this is going to be a problem if my vmlinux kernel image is 1.5M?