On Wed, 13 Mar 2002, Ignatios Souvatzis wrote:

: > : ok, if you define it that way, yes. Still leaves us with the same problem:
: > : unless you want to create a disk images (as opposed to a filesystem image),
: > : you can't cross-installboot. Or you have to leave out level0.
: >
: > Well, provided you have a RDB parser, you can at set the bootable flag,
: > reserved blocks, and write out the data; you just can't repartition.  The
: > RDB parser is what we're missing, and Luke has now volunteered to write it.
:
: For cross-filesystem-creation , you can't. The RDB is outside of the partition
: you're creating.

As is the MBR with MBR-based systems; the concept is the same for all the
"level0"s mentioned in this thread.  There's metadata outside the partition
itself.

Which brings me to realize something that Luke might need to consider:  a
cross-installboot may be most useful only for creating *boot* media, not
runtime media.  In this case, you drop the need for MBR on i386, RDB on
amiga, and so forth.  Should we have a separate boot-media installboot (run
by the cross host) vs. runtime-media installboot (run by sysinst or after
installation, on the target)?

: As for the "set bit and count" bits, I've mentally volunteered to write that
: for a long time, I've just not felt it was urgent enough (without writing a
: full repartitioner) to be useful.

Well, it's actually useful when *installing* a NetBSD/amiga system, even if
you have to use HDToolBox to partition it.  I've used loadbsd almost
exclusively, so I don't know what kind of demand there is within the
userbase.

-- 
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