Re: debian-cd lacks boot support for mips and mipsel
Well, you tell me things that I cannot really fully understand, let's see...
> Unfortunately no. But even nonbootable CDs would be a good thing. Are
> there any problems building these without additional patches?
> I'll try to find some time to look into the debian-cd package but I fear
> it will not be feasable for mips since our bootloader(arcboot) currently
> only reads ext2 fs which is also true for delo(the mipsel bootloader) I
> think.
This will mean that our loader only supports ext2 fs, so I'd be expecting
something like SILO, which searches for the kernel by himself instead of
knowing its position, isn't it that?
> I think we cant make cd bootable. The sgi prom as far as I know only boot
> cd's with the efs-Filesystem. The recommend way to boot an sgi computer
> for installing is via tftp.
And this would mean that the cd should have a efs filesystem, what is this
FS like?, is it based on ISO9660?, do we have any tool able to create one of
this?
For what I see, needing ext2 on one side and efs on the other means that it
is imposible to boot from CD unless someone modifies the bootloaders or
something so that they cope with efs, isn't it like that?
Talking with R. Hertzog the maintainer of debian-cd about this he told me:
"we certainly can make empty boot-mips{,el} if they wish so but they could
also provide what is required to start the tftp thingie on the boot disk of
the CD ...".
So, I'd say that if there is no way to get the mips/el to boot the boot
floppies from a CD, at least we should provide the tftp or whatever help
that is needed to get the install started.
As for now I have set up my site with empty scripts so that the cds get
built and that you can download and see them, I'm out of space, so I could
only make the full cd set of one of them, mips, while I have made only the
first CD for mipsel. They are already available for download following the
instructions on http://cdimage-unofficial.debian.net. If any of you wants to
download them, have a look at them and give sugestions or provide boot
scripts, he is welcome to do so. Also if you want the cds mounted I could
arange for that, I'm almost all day connected as manty on irc.debian.org if
you want me to loopback mount any of the images to have a look at them.
Well, guess that is all I can do for now, sugestions or help to fix this are
welcome.
Regards...
--
Manty/BestiaTester -> http://manty.net
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