RE: install image overflow

[David Ross <dross%pobox.com@localhost>]

It's quite handy that the bootloader supports gzip'd kernels.  I don't suppose there's support for compression at some level that could help us with sysinst as well?


Dave

----------------------------------------
> To: martin%duskware.de@localhost
> CC: port-atari%NetBSD.org@localhost; tsutsui%ceres.dti.ne.jp@localhost
> Subject: Re: install image overflow
> From: tsutsui%ceres.dti.ne.jp@localhost
> Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2015 22:17:40 +0900
>
> martin@ wrote:
>
>>> I wish no one will claim "build or die" strategy even before 7.0 is out.
>>
>> Certainly not!
>
> Well, certainly there were so much many complaints
> "leaving builds broken was much worse than blah blah"
> in past, even from Core members...
>
>> I have two ideas I will investigate short-term:
>>
>> - make many of the recent sysinst enhancements optional and ifdef them out
>> for install media where this makes sense (but leave them in for the
>> installed version).
>
> Note sysinst.fs in 7.0_RC1 has no problem.
> I'm not sure how many changes are applied in HEAD
> after netbsd-7 was cut, though.
>
>
> On the other hand, the "long-term solution" is adding support
> "loading md-root (or kernel) from multiple floppies".
>
> For the "multiple floppy support" there are two approach,
> but atari port has historical difficulties in both way.
>
>
> 1) Add "standard" ustarfs support in bootloaders
>
> This is common method used in all ports so easier way to maintain,
> but this requires bootloader reorganization and the reorganization
> requires more information about ATARI hardware/BIOS sepecifications, like
>
> - how TOS(?) ROM bootstrap routines read and exec boot sectors on floppy
> - how can we read sectors via TOS(?) BIOS
>
> Currently "read sector" functions are passed from the primary bootloaders
> http://nxr.netbsd.org/xref/src/sys/arch/atari/stand/bootxx/bootxx.c?r=1.16#57
> http://nxr.netbsd.org/xref/src/sys/arch/atari/stand/xxboot/fdboot/fdboot.S?r=1.2#109
> http://nxr.netbsd.org/xref/src/sys/arch/atari/stand/xxboot/fdboot/fdboot.S?r=1.2#168
> but such bootloader structure is atari specific so it requires
> more investigations.
> (Probably we have to contact the original author, Leo Weppelman)
>
> Futheremore, atari port has five different GENERIC-like kernels
> (ATARITT, FALCON, HADES, MILAN-PCIIDE, MILAN_ISAIDE)
> so I'm afraid we need "md-root" kernels for all of them..
>
>
> 2) Add multiple floppy support in atari specific "auto-load md(4) on open"
>
> The atari port has its own md_root.c which support
> "auto-load md(4) images from raw floppy device on first open(9)"
> operations.
> http://nxr.netbsd.org/xref/src/sys/arch/atari/dev/md_root.c?r=1.33#121
>
> This function allows users to use both "root on fd0a" and
> "root on md0 (which is loaded from sysinst.fs floopy)" ops.
>
> This "loaddisk" function in the md_root.c already supports
> multiple floppies:
> http://nxr.netbsd.org/xref/src/sys/arch/atari/dev/md_root.c?r=1.33#247
>
> I had tested it (autoload md(4) image from mulitiple floppies) on i386
> when I debugged autoloading md(4) post-4.0 vmlocking2 branch merge:
> http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-atari/2008/12/24/msg000158.html
>
> But scripts in src/distrib/atari/floppies doesn't support spliting images.
>
> Furthermore, this "autoload on open" strategy has several problems:
>
> - Users no longer can use "root on fd0a" method
>
> - IIRC Andrew Doran (VM guy who introduced vmlocking2 etc) deprecated it
> (I cannot find the message in archive though)
>
> - md(4) pseudo-device was changed into "attached on open" after 5.0
> http://mail-index.netbsd.org/source-changes/2010/11/11/msg014346.html
> so we had to add ugly hack to allow to specify "root on md0" on
> RB_ASKNAME prompt.
> http://mail-index.netbsd.org/source-changes/2012/06/30/msg035297.html
> http://mail-index.netbsd.org/source-changes/2012/06/30/msg035298.html
>
>
> Hope these information help future developers.
>
> ---
> Izumi Tsutsui