Re: [i386 BOOT CODE] kernel bootable again

[Giuseppe Bilotta <bilotta78@hotpop.com>]

On Sat, 17 Sep 2005 17:56:08 +0200, Jesper Juhl wrote:

>> This is probably a stupid suggestion, but here it goes anyway: the
>> kernel has to be written on disk by something, right?
>> 
>> So if the "something" knows (or can get to know) the sector/tracks
>> layout of the disk it's writing the kernel onto, it could store this
>> information in the bootblock (is there space for that?). The bootblock
>> code would then just read this info and use it.
>> 
>> Of course, this would mean that making a kernel-bootable floppy
>> wouldn't be as simple as cp'ing the kernel image to /dev/fdwhatever,
>> but if a script/program designed to do this was included with the
>> kernel source (it wouldn't be too big ...) ...
>> 
> I may be missing something here, but if you are going to do something
> like that, then why not just use a real bootloader instead?

I'm not too much into this stuff, I don't even know the technical 
differences betwen booting from kernel-on-floppy or from a bootloader. 
My proposal was just to work around the "what's the track layout" 
issue in the kernel-on-floppy direct boot. Maybe you could see it like 
a delayed bootloader process ... don't know.

But as I mentioned, it was probably just a stupid suggestion :)

-- 
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

Axiom I of the Giuseppe Bilotta
theory of IT:
Anything is better than MS

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