Re: New CD-ROM: Plea for floppyless install

[bruce@pixar.com (Bruce Perens)]

From: Christoph Lameter <clameter@waterf.org>
> mkrboot can also generate a .zip file that uses loadlin to boot linux
> from DOS. Could we put the contents of such a zip file uncompressed into
> the root of the new CD-Rom?

I think we have to work on the default organization for CDs a bit more.
For example, Windows 95 seems to have problems if the CD root directory
contains any directory or file names that don't fit in the 8.3 name space.
For this reason, my 0.93 CD had the contents of the FTP archive under
/debian . I think we need to make a recommendation for CD manufacturers
on how to lay out their CDs, else it might be difficult for the user to
even find the boot files. We also need to tell them what dselect expects
to find on the CD.

I would create two boot files:

A. Just the kernel (with CD drivers linked in) and the mini-root,
   for 4MB RAM systems. Additional modules are read off of the CD after
   the kernel boots.
B. Contains all modules, the kernel package, and base1_2.tgz, so that it
   can get the system booting without any additional access to the CD, even
   if there is no driver for your CD in our kernels.

I think to do this we need to modify mkrboot to add a ramdisk-size
argument, as option B is larger than the 4MB default size of the ram disk.
"gzip -l" will give you the uncompressed size of the disk image.

> Then you should be able to install Debian from dos by doing for example:
> D:
> INSTALL

We can do better. Put a boot.bat file in the root. Have it offer the user
a view or printout of the installation notes, and have it offer a selection
of booting options. Put the data in the dos_boot subdirectory and have
boot.bat access it there.

	Thanks

	Bruce

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