Re: Re (2): silo

[satadru@umich.edu]

Having booted linux in the past from Open Firmware (the kernel off of a 
floppy disk, and that on a mac with buggy Open Firmware that was configured 
to HIDE open firmware during the entire boot process) I think that it 
should be possible to have a kernel sit on a UFS filesystem, and then have 
open firmware load the kernel from a UFS filesystem, no?

While I can't see much use for this, I guess there are some underlying 
questions that might be valid.

1) why do we need to load a bootloader from open firmware?  Is this just 
some program that lets us load a kernel from a non-UFS partition?
2) Can we set boot parameters in Open Firmware?  That would be "nice", 
since sparc machines do let you set options in the OF nvram.
3) Is it possible to compile a kernel with UFS support such that you might 
be able to use a sun-compatible UFS partition as the root partition?

Let me point out that I know very little about the actual boot process, and 
the handing off of open firmware to the actual kernel/ multilevel boot 
loaders that sparc linux may be using.

But I do find the questions intriguing - why devote energy to a separate 
sparc boot loader when a fairly large company is already spending 
considerable effort on a bios configuration and boot loader environment.

satadru

--On Friday, April 18, 2003 10:11 PM -0400 Ben Collins 
<bcollins@debian.org> wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 18, 2003 at 05:06:05PM -0800,
> peter_easthope@gulfnet.sd64.bc.ca wrote:
> > Ben,
> >
> > bc> None of that helps it boot a Linux kernel
> > from an non-UFS filesystem.
> >
> > There is no non-UFS filesystem here.  I
> > suppose there is a remote possibility of
> > wanting to boot from an external CD in
> > the future.
>
> You've no idea what you are talking about. You are booting Linux on a
> harddriver attached to your sparc. You _are_ booting off of an ext2
> filesystem (IOW, a filesystem that is not UFS). The PROM has no idea
> what that filesystem is.
>
> > bc> Are you trolling, or do you have a real question hidden somewhere in
> > there?
> >
> > I must be trolling--taking the role of a troll.
> >
> > In any case, have learned a little.  I hadn't
> > thought about the distinction between "booting
> > the OS" and "bootstrapping the OS Loader".
> >
> > This is my tentative silo.conf.  Perhaps someone
> > can mention an error or suggest an improvement.
> >
> > timeout=100
> > read-only
> > image=/sbus/esp@0,800000/sd@1,0;1/vmlinuz
> > label=woody
> > image=/sbus/esp@0,800000/sd@3,0;1/vmlinuz
> > label=potato
>
> I suspect you can just use Linux device names, but aside from that you
> need a root= for each image, else the kernel wont know what to mount.
>
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>
>
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