RE: Bootable CD

[Wouter Verhelst <wouter@debian.org>]

On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, BERNARDES,JOAN (Non-HP-Brazil,ex1) wrote:

> 	Hi,
> 	I have a question about the Red Hat 7.1 installation CD.
> 	The Red Hat installation disk has a GUI application that runs to
> install it. In some point of the installation this programs ask to the user
> to put the Red Hat disk 2, how is it possible if there is a file in the disk
> 1 mounted in the loop device? If you see the mtab file in the /etc you will
> see:

I don't mean to be rude, but do you actually read what I write?

<snip>
> > 	How is it possible to switch CD during and Linux installation if you
> > have a file mounted in a loop device?
> 
> Since... you don't.

As I wrote: There is NO file mounted as a loop device while you're running
RedHat's (or Debian's) installer. The fact that I told you to mount it
using the loop device does not mean it's the only way to mount it.

The installer does it the following way:

> That file is loaded to memory and gunzipped somewhere in the process, then
> mounted as a RAM-disc.

It loads it into RAM. Once it's into RAM, it's got the filesystem as a
RAM-disk and can actually access it from RAM. That is to say, without
CD-ROM. See?

<snip>

Have a look at initrd for details on how to do this.

-- 
wouter dot verhelst at advalvas dot be

"Human knowledge belongs to the world"
  -- from the movie "Antitrust"