In article <20060509055420.GE17851@bcd.geek.com.au>,
	Daniel Carosone <dan@geek.com.au> writes:
> 
> On Tue, May 09, 2006 at 12:36:40AM -0500, Frederick Bruckman wrote:
>> Seems like the way to go?
> 
> Yes, that or using the boot_cd9660 functionality (which is missing a
> couple of details, like working 'ls' from the bootloader prompt, but
> is perhaps likely to be more MI).  It seems likely we'll need a mix of
> both.

I should point out that my succesful test (of hard disk emulation)
used NetBSD-2.1 "fdisk" and "installboot". The "dev" and "ls" seem
to be broken with the current bootblocks, no matter the device.

> That's enough to get a kernel loaded, and have a functional filesystem
> to mount as root (rather than needing an md image in the kernel).

That sounds nice.  [Everyone should realize that that's not what
"hard disk emulation" does at all. HDE only works for BIOS INT 13
mode, so to NetBSD, it's basically a giant floppy.]

> What I'd also like to see, regardless of how we get to this point, is
> using the init.chroot functionality to allow a kernel with very small
> md root image, perhaps loaded via some media that might include a
> floppy, to then use some other media (non-bootable CD or USB stick,
> NFS, etc) as root to load additional binaries and continue the
> install/rescue/whatever process. =20
> 
> This would mean that the "install image" filesystem and the "method of
> booting it" need not be so tightly coupled as they are now. Perhaps we
> then may not need to duplicate so much of the install media for
> distribution, including also offering useful opportunities for sharing
> on the "multi" CD/DVD images.

Why do we need any md image at all?  Can't you just set the
build-time default in the bootblocks (in the tiny emulation
image) to ISO boot?


Frederick