Phil Schaffner wrote:
On Thu, 2004-02-05 at 13:38, Bevan C. Bennett wrote:
Michael Gargiullo wrote:
How do I format a floppy to accept the over-sized fedora boot image?
I've tried mkbootdisk --size 1400 --device /dev/fd0 2.4.22-1.2149.nptl
But it's still creating an image thats too large
You're going the wrong direction - standard size is 1440 and the kernel
already won't fit.
Try one or more of the following sizes, but the only one I've ever
gotten to work is 1722 - seems to depend on specific floppy/BIOS
combination:
[prs@radar0 prs]$ ll /dev/fd0u1[67]*
brw-rw---- 1 prs floppy 2, 124 Sep 15 09:40 /dev/fd0u1660
brw-rw---- 1 prs floppy 2, 44 Sep 15 09:40 /dev/fd0u1680
brw-rw---- 1 prs floppy 2, 60 Sep 15 09:40 /dev/fd0u1722
brw-rw---- 1 prs floppy 2, 76 Sep 15 09:40 /dev/fd0u1743
brw-rw---- 1 prs floppy 2, 96 Sep 15 09:40 /dev/fd0u1760
brw-rw---- 1 prs floppy 2, 116 Sep 15 09:40 /dev/fd0u1840
brw-rw---- 1 prs floppy 2, 100 Sep 15 09:40 /dev/fd0u1920
For example:
# fdformat /dev/fd0u1722
# mkbootdisk --size 1722 --device /dev/fd0u1722 2.4.22-1.2149.nptl
Alternatively, build a trimmed-down custom kernel that will fit a 1440
floppy.
In the images directory of your fedora distribution should be several files:
bootdisk.img - floppy sized boot image
drvnet.img - floppy sized image with extra network drivers
drvblock.img - floppy sized image with extra block device drivers
boot.iso - CD sized boot image with drivers included
They can be found, for example, at
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/fedora/core/1/i386/os/images
To put the boot image on a floppy:
% dd if=bootdisk.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=1024
The above would work for installation boot, but seems he might want to
boot a more current kernel.
Backing up a step, what is the real objective? Is a boot floppy with a
kernel required, or could the objective be satisfied by having (possibly
redundant) kernels on hard disk and making a GRUB boot (or LILO - won't
get into religious discussions) boot floppy?
Standard kernels will not fit on a floppy. You need to build a
kernel that has NOTHING in it (fully modular) except maybe the IDE
driver, and build an initrd that has ONLY the modules you really need to
get the root filesystem on line (the SCSI stuff if you use SCSI and
perhaps ext3fs if you use the ext3 filesystem).
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