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Re: APUS Debian Boot-Floppies Images and bugs



hi,

> Don't you need some part of AmigaOS to make a floppy bootable?

no, and yes.  Under AmigaOS you run 'install df0:' but this doesnt
put any files onto the disk as such, it just writes a bootblock
(a few hundred bytes) to the floppy. Theres no reason why we couldnt have
an AmigaOS bootblock and write it to disk with 'dd' 

> Doesn't at least amiboot need some libraries to be present on the system you
> are booting from?

not that i can think of.  certainly boot-programs (such as the
APUS/AF-booter (by Mr Duncan ) need MUI libraries, but the plain
boothack/bootstrap for APUS just needs powerpc.library, which is in ROM

> Can all hardware already be set up by the kernel?

almost all supported stuff...the only main exception that rings alarm
bells in my head is the CyverVision3D - doesnt this have to be initialised
to the resolution you want under workbench before laucnhing into APU - or
is this now fixed?

> How do you get the image on the floppy, from linux? From AmigaOS? It
> probably has to be done on an amiga to use the 1.76MB drives (or on a PC
> with a catweasel controller, even less probable).

Linux can write 1.76Mb floppy images:

brw-rw----   1 almb     floppy     2,  96 May 25  2000 fd0H1760

it can also write 1.92Mb diskettes, but that is flakey on most floppy
hardware. The reasons why PC disk-drives cannot read Amiga floppy disks
is not because they cannot cope with the capacity, its all down to the
format of the layout and timings. If you're running APUS you'll be running
with Amiga hardware anyway.
 
> So I guess you need an Amgia, running AmigaOS, to create these floppies, to
> then be able to boot from those floppies. Probably we will not be allowed to
> ship those floppies or even images of them, due to copyright reasons, so
> every user has to create them himself.

theres no issue of copyright with bootable floppies. PD software has been
on such things for years.  I guess as a last resort we can create a
bootable emegency floppy, compact it into ADF format and then it can go
onto the CD - and users can make it themselves from under AmigaOS with
transADF and the like?

alan



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