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:
> > So the disk created by using rawrite and nx.dsk
> > and a floppy disk in a: should contain a kernel
>
> Is nx.dsk a boot disk?  Rawrite is also used to
> create root disks.

Delilinux called it a boot disk.


> > that can be copied over
>
> Copying a kernel from a boot disk may not be simple.

What more information would you need to tell someone how to copy the 
kernel over for use with BL?

> > What are the chances that Delilinux kernels are
> > 'minix'?
>
> None.  However, the DeliLinux kernel could be
> sitting on a minix filesystem (similar to the
> way the BL3 zimage sits on a DOS filesystem).

So then what do you do with it if you want to use it somewhere else?

> > > A root disk contains the root filesystem.
> >
> > What is a root filesystem,
>
> It's the filesystem that the kernel runs (/sbin/init).
> It has the startup files (inittab, fstab, rc, profile).
> It's what the loadlin root parameter points at.
>
> > all the files that get mounted when you boot?
>
> Files don't get mounted.  Filesystems get mounted.
Files get installed?

> > Is this baslinux.gz, which in BL2 will not fit
> > into one 1.44 floppy disk so you split them?
>
> Yes.
>
> > Why gz not tgz?
>
> Because it is an filesystem image, not an archive.
>
> > So Bl3 can be used as a 1-floppy linux
>
> Yes.
>
> > With just the first disk, you should be able to
> > use BL3 in 8MB RAM,

> Maybe, maybe not.  IIRC the routine that loads the
> second floppy creates the second ramdisk before asking
> you to insert the second floppy.  This alone might crash
> a system with only 8mb RAM.

I put disk 1 into a computer which only has 8MB RAM, hit Ctrl-C instead of 
Enter, and it worked perfectly.  Have you tried this?  I have only one 
such 8MB computer.  There were 2MB free.  I ran only a few very small 
programs:  df and du and ls and less.

> > I have a laptop with 8MB and will try that shortly.
>
> Good luck.  If it does work, do 'free' to see how much
> RAM is left and 'df' to see whether the second ramdisk
> (at /usr/X11R6) is there.

I did the experiment before getting this information from you.
df told me 51% of the space was use and I had about 2MB free.
There was a second line there which I did not read, as I got interested in 
looking for a way to put modules on the first disk.

If the second ramdisk is there, would there be some way to remove it so as 
to use the RAM for other purposes?  It is after 1 am here.  I will get 
back to this tomorrow.

I was NOT able to boot BL2 2-floppy on a computer with 5MB RAM, perhaps 
because it was trying to make a second ramdisk.  Long string of the same 
error message about do-try-to-free-memory-for-swap (or something similar).

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