Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1750930AbVIQQWq (ORCPT ); Sat, 17 Sep 2005 12:22:46 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751139AbVIQQWq (ORCPT ); Sat, 17 Sep 2005 12:22:46 -0400 Received: from main.gmane.org ([80.91.229.2]:27015 "EHLO ciao.gmane.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750930AbVIQQWp (ORCPT ); Sat, 17 Sep 2005 12:22:45 -0400 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org From: Giuseppe Bilotta Subject: Re: [i386 BOOT CODE] kernel bootable again Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2005 18:19:29 +0200 Message-ID: References: <33542.85.68.36.53.1126619176.squirrel@212.11.36.192> <432722A1.8030302@tuxrocks.com> <43272B9D.1030301@zytor.com> <33296.85.68.36.53.1126690932.squirrel@212.11.36.192> <1rhnij9opqgby$.4jlz2jfqsmkc$.dlg@40tude.net> <9a8748490509170856a1b9428@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: host-84-220-48-14.cust-adsl.tiscali.it User-Agent: 40tude_Dialog/2.0.15.1 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1594 Lines: 32 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 - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/