Subject: Re: shouldn't installboot install /boot.amiga?
To: Aymeric Vincent <Aymeric.Vincent@labri.fr>
From: Luke Mewburn <lukem@netbsd.org>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 01/09/2003 12:45:51
On Wed, Jan 08, 2003 at 11:36:06PM +0100, Aymeric Vincent wrote:
  | [ posted to tech-userlevel too, to gather other opinions ]
  | 
  | Hubert Feyrer <hubert.feyrer@informatik.fh-regensburg.de> writes:
  | 
  | > On Wed, 8 Jan 2003, Ignatios Souvatzis wrote:
  | > > > My point is, installboot(8) should take care to install that file.
  | > > Ah, sorry. need sleep. Will think about where to do it tomorrow.
  | > 
  | > I think the i386 port's installboot(8) cares to setup /boot, so should the
  | > amiga-port do. (Sorry, no diff ;)
  | 
  | I'm not sure this is a good idea because the generic installboot(8)
  | doesn't take care of installing the second stage bootblock (as seen
  | from its manpage).

That's correct.

The i386 doesn't use the generic installboot, although it should be
converted to do so.


  | I wouldn't like installboot(8) to erase an existing /boot.amiga file
  | without any apparent reason. (many people may not suspect that running
  | installboot will actually touch the contents of the root filesystem)
  | 
  | However, maybe we could provide /boot.amiga in the base tarball?
  | >From a quick glance in distrib/sets/lists/base/md.*,
  | mipsco, pmax and vax do that.

This would only work if the first stage boot block doesn't contain
a list of hard-coded disks blocks for "/boot" (or "/boot.amiga").