Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Sun, 12 Dec 2004 3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:

> sindi keesan wrote:
> > Steven, or anyone else, could you explain here about
> > boot and root disks
>
> A boot disk contains a bootable kernel (perhaps using
> lilo) and nothing else.

kernel = zimage in BL2, bZimage or vmlinuz or various other names in 
other linuxes.  So the disk created by using rawrite and nx.dsk and a 
floppy disk in a: should contain a kernel that can be copied over to a 
basiclinux installation, right?   What are the chances that Delilinux 
kernels are 'minix'?

> A root disk contains the root filesystem.

What is a root filesystem, all the files that get mounted when you boot?

Is this baslinux.gz, which in BL2 will not fit into one 1.44 floppy disk 
so you split them?  Why gz not tgz?

> > and how BL2 and BL3 2-floppy versions are related?
>
> The BL2 floppies are not boot/root disks.  The first
> floppy contains the kernel and part of the root
> filesystem.  The second floppy contains the remainder
> of the root filesystem.  When the first floppy boots
> (in DOS) it merges the two parts of the root filesystem,
> puts them in a ramdisk and boots the kernel (loadlin).
>
> The BL3 floppies are different.  The first floppy is
> a self-contained boot/root disk.  It contains both the
> kernel and the root filesystem.  It boots the kernel
> (using lilo) and runs the root filesystem in a ramdisk.
> /etc/rc then creates a second ramdisk, mounts it at
> /usr/X11R6, and loads the contents of the second floppy
> into it.  The second floppy is optional.  Instead of
> inserting it, you can press CTRL-C and BL3 will run
> normally (except it will not have X, links or modules).

That is very useful to know.  We have been repeatedly booting from 
floppies to test pcmcia and could skip the second floppy and just use a 
separate one with the six modules, which would be faster to boot.

So Bl3 can be used as a 1-floppy linux without support for CD-ROM, pcmcia, 
network, modem, serial or parallel ports, or html.  Excellent for a rescue 
disk.

With just the first disk, you should be able to use BL3 in 8MB RAM, but 
the second would require a total of 12 MB?   I have a laptop with 8MB and 
will try that shortly.

Thanks.

It sounds like most boot/root pairs have a much larger kernel and a lot 
fewer useful files than BL2 or BL2 2-floppy.


> Cheers,
> Steven
>
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keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org