Re: Success with 2.88 meg boot image!!!!!
On Wed, 2 Sep 1998, Branden Robinson wrote:
>
> Wow, I'm impressed. I was privately convinced that it was impossible
> because of stupid BIOSes.
Reasonable BIOSes simply get the geometry from track 0 and map sectors
accordingly. The first trick was determining the correct geometry.
>
> Since you've enjoyed success, please harass the hell out of whoever wrote
> Documents/ramdisk.txt (or heck, pester ac or Linus himself) to pass on your
> knowledge so other folks don't inadvertently make frisbees. :)
>
I guess I could submit a patch ;-)
+ The initial size of the ramdisk must match the size of the uncompressed
+ initrd image file.
> I take it this means Debian 2.1 will have a more manly CD install process?
>
I didn't do any optimization. The kernel was compiled with "everything"
modules, and I included the complete modules subdirectory for that kernel
in a stock Debian root.bin. Still, there is some space available on the
current root.bin image file, and a bit of space still on the floppy image.
This means that there is lots of room for more inovative (and space
consumptive) installation techniques, at least for the CD installs.
The next problem I need to tackle is how to decide which modules to
install to complete the bootup. The kernel detects all the necessary
hardware during bootup, but I haven't found where it keeps that info yet.
If the scsi, or ethernet cards are pci, they are registered in /proc/pci,
and I have no problems parsing the scsi modules from that file. (BTW, the
graphics card is usually registered there as well which should be of help
to X installs)
This doesn't deal with the non-pci cards, or the proprietary cards.
I'd prefer not to ask any questions, not even "pick from the following
list". I'm searching for the "hands off" installation ;-)
Waiting is,
Dwarf
--
_-_-_-_-_- Author of "The Debian Linux User's Guide" _-_-_-_-_-_-
aka Dale Scheetz Phone: 1 (850) 656-9769
Flexible Software 11000 McCrackin Road
e-mail: dwarf@polaris.net Tallahassee, FL 32308
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