Hi, I'm the maintainer ROCK Linux (www.rocklinux.org). We are using isolinux on our Install-CDs for x86 systems. We - as most other distributions too - are running in the problem that even minimalistc kernels are slowly growing and sometimes don't fit on 1.44 MB floppies anymore. 2.5.x kernels with initramfs are even bigger than 2.88 MB in some cases... Until now it always has been possible to shrik a kernel down to 1.44 MB and also shrink the initrd image do a size which fits on one single disk. But I'm afraid that will not be possible anymore with linux 2.6. A possible solution would be to teach the boot loader how to load a kernel image which is splitted over multiple disks. Something like: Loading vmlinuz ............................................ * Please insert next disk * Loading vmlinuz ............................................ * Please insert next disk * Loading vmlinuz ............................ Ready. Loading initrd.img ..... * Please insert next disk * Loading initrd.img ............... Ready. That would be a _really_ cool syslinux feature. But please don't ask me to send you a patch - I've not been writing real-mode assembler for over ten years now .... yours, - clifford -- | Clifford Wolf ............ www.clifford.at . . . IRC: www.freenode.net | ROCK Linux Workgroup ..... www.rocklinux.org . . Tel: +43-699-10063494 | NTx Consulting Group ..... www.ntx.at . . . . . Fax: +43-2235-42788-4 | Vocat.cc ................. www.vocat.cc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | EDEN Creations ........... www.edenevents.at . . . . . . . . . . . . . +------=[ Usenet Compliant Signature (RFC 2646) ]=---> www.rocklinux.net>>> I'm looking for a new job: http://www.clifford.at/resume.html <<<Reality corrupted. Reboot universe? (Y/N) /"\ ASCII Ribbon \ / Campaign There are only 10 types of people in the world: X Against Those who understand binary and those who don't. / \ HTML Mail
Well, one of the possible solutions is to use ISOLINUX. No more limits on the kernel and initrd files ;) -----Original Message----- From: Clifford Wolf [mailto:clifford at clifford.at] Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 1:22 PM To: syslinux at zytor.com Subject: [syslinux] Syslinux: Multi-Disks [feature] Hi, I'm the maintainer ROCK Linux (www.rocklinux.org). We are using isolinux on our Install-CDs for x86 systems. We - as most other distributions too - are running in the problem that even minimalistc kernels are slowly growing and sometimes don't fit on 1.44 MB floppies anymore. 2.5.x kernels with initramfs are even bigger than 2.88 MB in some cases... Until now it always has been possible to shrik a kernel down to 1.44 MB and also shrink the initrd image do a size which fits on one single disk. But I'm afraid that will not be possible anymore with linux 2.6. A possible solution would be to teach the boot loader how to load a kernel image which is splitted over multiple disks. Something like: Loading vmlinuz ............................................ * Please insert next disk * Loading vmlinuz ............................................ * Please insert next disk * Loading vmlinuz ............................ Ready. Loading initrd.img ..... * Please insert next disk * Loading initrd.img ............... Ready. That would be a _really_ cool syslinux feature. But please don't ask me to send you a patch - I've not been writing real-mode assembler for over ten years now .... yours, - clifford -- | Clifford Wolf ............ www.clifford.at . . . IRC: www.freenode.net | ROCK Linux Workgroup ..... www.rocklinux.org . . Tel: +43-699-10063494 | NTx Consulting Group ..... www.ntx.at . . . . . Fax: +43-2235-42788-4 | Vocat.cc ................. www.vocat.cc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | EDEN Creations ........... www.edenevents.at . . . . . . . . . . . . . +------=[ Usenet Compliant Signature (RFC 2646) ]=---> www.rocklinux.net>>> I'm looking for a new job: http://www.clifford.at/resume.html <<<Reality corrupted. Reboot universe? (Y/N) /"\ ASCII Ribbon \ / Campaign There are only 10 types of people in the world: X Against Those who understand binary and those who don't. / \ HTML Mail _______________________________________________ SYSLINUX mailing list Submissions to SYSLINUX at zytor.com Unsubscribe or set options at: http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/syslinux Please do not send private replies to mailing list traffic.
>> one of the possible solutions is to use ISOLINUX. >> No more limits on the kernel and initrd files ;) > >Sure. We are using isolinux for the bootable cd. But sometimes you want toinstall on a box without >cd-drive (e.g. when installing from network). Then the other possible solution is to use PXELINUX! :) p.s. if the card supports it of course :)
Ok, has you have guessed, my answer was more of a joke than a real solution... Please do not be upset. That was not my intention. As for the other boot methods: sooner or later our beloved floppy will eventually die from age. As new boot methods appear, more BIOSes will support them. it is just a matter of time. As the technology evolves the boot methods will have to follow. -----Original Message----- From: Clifford Wolf [mailto:clifford at clifford.at] Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 4:40 PM To: Luis.F.Correia Cc: syslinux at zytor.com Subject: RE: [syslinux] Syslinux: Multi-Disks [feature] On Tue, 11 Mar 2003, Luis.F.Correia wrote:> >> one of the possible solutions is to use ISOLINUX. > >> No more limits on the kernel and initrd files ;) > > > >Sure. We are using isolinux for the bootable cd. But sometimes you > >want to > install on a box without >cd-drive (e.g. when installing from > network). > > Then the other possible solution is to use PXELINUX!Ok - So when doing an install over rs232 or non bootable medias like usb devices without bios support for booting from usb, parallel zip drive, bioses without support for booting from network, etc. etc. Not having boot-floppies at all isn't really an option imo. yours, - clifford -- | Clifford Wolf ............ www.clifford.at . . . IRC: www.freenode.net | ROCK Linux Workgroup ..... www.rocklinux.org . . Tel: +43-699-10063494 | NTx Consulting Group ..... www.ntx.at . . . . . Fax: +43-2235-42788-4 | Vocat.cc ................. www.vocat.cc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | EDEN Creations ........... www.edenevents.at . . . . . . . . . . . . . +------=[ Usenet Compliant Signature (RFC 2646) ]=---> www.rocklinux.net>>> I'm looking for a new job: http://www.clifford.at/resume.html <<<Reality corrupted. Reboot universe? (Y/N) /"\ ASCII Ribbon \ / Campaign There are only 10 types of people in the world: X Against Those who understand binary and those who don't. / \ HTML Mail
Clifford Wolf wrote:>We - as most other distributions too - are running in the problem that >even minimalistc kernels are slowly growing and sometimes don't fit on >1.44 MB floppies anymore. > >The following is of course no solution for the kernel size growing beyond 1.44MB.>A possible solution would be to teach the boot loader how to load a kernel >image which is splitted over multiple disks. Something like: > > Loading vmlinuz ............................................ > * Please insert next disk * > Loading vmlinuz ............................................ > * Please insert next disk * > Loading vmlinuz ............................ Ready. > Loading initrd.img ..... > * Please insert next disk * > Loading initrd.img ............... Ready. > >That would be a _really_ cool syslinux feature. But please don't ask me to >send you a patch - I've not been writing real-mode assembler for over ten >years now .... > >Perhaps you shouldn't try to get that from your Bootloader. Initrd was afaik for having a minimalistic system before the System boots: Load the Kernel from the first floppy (Prepaired according to Bootdisk HOWto; the older kernels did support: dd if=vmlinuz of=/dev/fd0) Load a small initrd from the second floppy, let the init from the initrd load the root filesystem of your distributions installer. (using for example gunzip -c | dd -skip 1440 bs=1k of=/dev/ram0; Read Manpage for parameters, I didn't look them up now.) I used a similar approach once using /dev/ram0 for the first disk and /dev/ram1 for the second disk, mounting ram0 as / and ram1 as /usr bye Christian