Syslinux - Jul 2002 - Question concerning booting from Floppy Drive

First I'd like to thank you, and everyone who has contributed to the 
isolinux development. It has been the solution to many of my development 
needs.

Currently I am creating a Linux system that runs directly from CD. Currently 
the CD is working and I am using isolinux to boot the CD. The compressed 
kernel is approximately 2 meg and the compressed initial ramdisk is 
approximately 4 meg. What I am interested in is using a floppy to boot the 
kernel and initial ramdisk which are on the CD. Is the a way to use a floppy 
to boot strap the isolinux system which is on the CD, or if this is not 
possible, or just a bad idea is there a way to boot the kernel and initial 
ramdisk on the CD using a floppy in some other fashion. The reason I am 
interested in doing this is that many of the systems that I currently have 
can not boot directly from CD and the kernel and initial ramdisk are to big 
to fit on a floppy or floppies. Unfortunately, loadlin is not a solution due 
to its kernel and ramdisk size limitations. Any help you could offer would 
be greatly appreciated.


Thank you,

David G. Reimer
Fame Information Services
325 E. Eisenhower St.
Ann Arbor, Mi 48104
dreimer at fame.com


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David Reimer wrote:
> First I'd like to thank you, and everyone who has contributed to the 
> isolinux development. It has been the solution to many of my development 
> needs.
> 
> Currently I am creating a Linux system that runs directly from CD. 
> Currently the CD is working and I am using isolinux to boot the CD. The 
> compressed kernel is approximately 2 meg and the compressed initial 
> ramdisk is approximately 4 meg. What I am interested in is using a 
> floppy to boot the kernel and initial ramdisk which are on the CD. Is 
> the a way to use a floppy to boot strap the isolinux system which is on 
> the CD, or if this is not possible, or just a bad idea is there a way to 
> boot the kernel and initial ramdisk on the CD using a floppy in some 
> other fashion. The reason I am interested in doing this is that many of 
> the systems that I currently have can not boot directly from CD and the 
> kernel and initial ramdisk are to big to fit on a floppy or floppies. 
> Unfortunately, loadlin is not a solution due to its kernel and ramdisk 
> size limitations. Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated.
> 
It's not possible unless you go kernel hacking.  If you're not bootinf 
from a CD-ROM, the BIOS cannot talk to it.  You could make the kernel 
load a ramdisk from the CD -- this isn't an "initial ramdisk"
anymore,
since that is by definition is loaded by the boot loader -- but that is 
a custom kernel mod.

	-hpa