I am having trouble getting a 2.4 vmlinuz (bzImage) and initrd
image onto a 1.44 floppy with all the new stuff. Even a stipped
down kernel compiled under 2.4 is @ 600K compressed, and I need
about 800K for the initrd image. I noticed that syslinux
has some comments about not allowing initrd to span media.
I there something more current that does or will allow me to
load the inittrd off a CD-ROM device (with vmlinuz and syslinux
on the floppy). I know how to do this with GRUB (Grand
Unified Boot Loader), but I want to use syslinux if possible.
Thanks
Jeff
Followup to: <[email protected]>
By author: "Jeff V. Merkey" <[email protected]>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> I am having trouble getting a 2.4 vmlinuz (bzImage) and initrd
> image onto a 1.44 floppy with all the new stuff. Even a stipped
> down kernel compiled under 2.4 is @ 600K compressed, and I need
> about 800K for the initrd image. I noticed that syslinux
> has some comments about not allowing initrd to span media.
>
> I there something more current that does or will allow me to
> load the inittrd off a CD-ROM device (with vmlinuz and syslinux
> on the floppy). I know how to do this with GRUB (Grand
> Unified Boot Loader), but I want to use syslinux if possible.
>
Why are you posting this to the kernel list? See the SYSLINUX
documentation for the SYSLINUX mailing list address.
-hpa
--
<[email protected]> at work, <[email protected]> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt
On Sun, Nov 26, 2000 at 08:22:54PM -0800, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Why are you posting this to the kernel list? See the SYSLINUX
> documentation for the SYSLINUX mailing list address.
Never mind. I am rewriting the install init program instead and
restructuring the driver organization to do what I need.
Jeff
Happily using initrd on a 1.44 floppy here, and there should be no reason why
you can't use it for a CDROM distro as well, you can have syslinux on the
CDROM too... I believe their is a a syslinux mailing list to check if you
have problems, and he has recently released updated versions of syslinux.
On Sun, 26 Nov 2000, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> I am having trouble getting a 2.4 vmlinuz (bzImage) and initrd
> image onto a 1.44 floppy with all the new stuff. Even a stipped
> down kernel compiled under 2.4 is @ 600K compressed, and I need
> about 800K for the initrd image. I noticed that syslinux
> has some comments about not allowing initrd to span media.
>
> I there something more current that does or will allow me to
> load the inittrd off a CD-ROM device (with vmlinuz and syslinux
> on the floppy). I know how to do this with GRUB (Grand
> Unified Boot Loader), but I want to use syslinux if possible.
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On Mon, Nov 27, 2000 at 09:29:08AM -0800, Michael Peddemors wrote:
> Happily using initrd on a 1.44 floppy here, and there should be no reason why
> you can't use it for a CDROM distro as well, you can have syslinux on the
> CDROM too... I believe their is a a syslinux mailing list to check if you
> have problems, and he has recently released updated versions of syslinux.
I've got it working here too, but not with an initrd image and vmlinuz image
that's bigger than the floppy.
Jeff
>
[Jeff V. Merkey]
> I am having trouble getting a 2.4 vmlinuz (bzImage) and initrd image
> onto a 1.44 floppy with all the new stuff.
Check out what Debian did for 2.2 ("potato"). Kernel and syslinux are
on a FAT floppy, and a second floppy holds a raw ext2 image, gzipped.
SYSLINUX.CFG begins like so:
DEFAULT linux
APPEND vga=normal noinitrd load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=1 ramdisk_size=16384 root=/dev/fd0 disksize=1.44
TIMEOUT 0
DISPLAY debian.txt
PROMPT 1
Just before mounting the root filesystem, the kernel says "insert
floppy and press <enter>" or some such.
You can download the images at
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/potato/main/disks-i386/current/images-1.44/
See 'rescue.bin' (syslinux+kernel) and 'root.bin' (initrd.gz).
> I there something more current that does or will allow me to
> load the inittrd off a CD-ROM device (with vmlinuz and syslinux
> on the floppy). I know how to do this with GRUB (Grand
> Unified Boot Loader), but I want to use syslinux if possible.
If you can count on having a BIOS that knows how to boot a CD-ROM (i.e.
the BIOS is new enough to be Y2K compliant) you can put a 2.88MB floppy
image on the CD for the BIOS to find. Should be big enough for the
next year or two.
Peter