Boot Disk
Phil Schaffner
Philip.R.Schaffner at NASA.gov
Thu Feb 5 19:03:20 UTC 2004
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 at 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?
Phil
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