Floppies for ALPHA

[Wilko Bulte]

On Wed, Jul 30, 2003 at 04:49:07PM -0400, John Baldwin wrote:
> 
> On 29-Jul-2003 David O'Brien wrote:
> >     [ Reply-to: set back to list ]
> >     
> > On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 07:38:48PM +0200, Wilko Bulte wrote:
> >> On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 12:54:36PM +0300, Ruslan Ermilov wrote:
> >> > I've got that feeling that the consensus was to drop the floppy
> >> > support for Alpha, as supporting it becomes a nightmare.  If so,
> >> 
> >> Yes, that consensus seems to be there. Finally.. :)
> >> 
> >> The question is if the way forward is a minimini.iso so a really
> >> minimal ISO image (<< in size that miniinst.iso) or some other mechanism
> >> like NetBSD or ancient SunOS 3.x used. Which, IIRC, was an image one dropped
> >> in to the swap area of a disk and booted from. 
> > 
> > Why do we have to choose one?  We should offer multiple ways (as we do
> > today).  The problem is not offering a small downloadable image to
> > install an Alpha from -- but that 1.44MB is a ridiculous size constraint
> > for that image.
> 
> All we need is a truly miniiso.  More of a boot-only iso.  The same thing
> could be stuck in a UFS image if people wish.  Basically a /R/cdrom/boot
> that contains just the /boot directory contents.  People can then either
> make an ISO from that or they can make a UFS image and dd it to a disk.
> 
> This would be orthogonal to floppies, btw.  Probably we would always
> create the boot.iso area under /R and on archs that can use it, we can
> create a UFS disk image that contains that system.  On the other hand,
> if dd'ing an actual ISO works fine, then we could just leave it at that.

polling isp0 (QLogic ISP10X0) slot 4, bus 0 PCI, hose 0   SCSI Bus ID 7
dkb0.0.0.4.0       DKB0                     SEAGATE ST39103LC  0002
dkb100.1.0.4.0     DKB100                   IBM DDRS-39130W  S92A

P00>>>boot dkb100
(boot dkb100.1.0.4.0 -flags 0)
block 0 of dkb100.1.0.4.0 is a valid boot block
reading 390 blocks from dkb100.1.0.4.0
bootstrap code read in
base = 200000, image_start = 0, image_bytes = 30c00
initializing HWRPB at 2000
initializing page table at 1f2000
initializing machine state
setting affinity to the primary CPU
configuring I/O adapters...
  ncr0, hose 1, bus 0, slot 1
  floppy0, hose 0, bus 1, slot 0
  isp0, hose 0, bus 0, slot 4
jumping to bootstrap code
Console: SRM firmware console
VMS PAL rev: 0x4000200010115
OSF PAL rev: 0x4000200020117
Switch to OSF PAL code succeeded.

FreeBSD/alpha SRM CD9660 boot, Revision 1.2
(root at mithlond.btc.adaptec.com, Wed Jun  4 15:10:16 GMT 2003)
Memory: 2097152 k
Loading /boot/defaults/loader.conf 
/boot/kernel/kernel data=0x4cd740+0x63ca0 syms=[0x8+0x65550+0x8+0x4d8a3]
-
Hit [Enter] to boot immediately, or any other key for command prompt.
Booting [/boot/kernel/kernel]...               
Entering /boot/kernel/kernel at 0xfffffc000033f0e0...
Unrecognized boot flag '0'.
Copyright (c) 1992-2003 The FreeBSD Project.
Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
        The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE #0: Thu Jun  5 01:42:39 GMT 2003
    root at mithlond.btc.adaptec.com:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC
Preloaded elf kernel "/boot/kernel/kernel" at 0xfffffc0000d20000.
Preloaded mfs_root "/boot/mfsroot" at 0xfffffc0000d200d0.

... bla bla ...

SMP: AP CPU #2 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #3 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #1 Launched!
Mounting root from ufs:/dev/md0
WARNING: clock gained 55 days -- CHECK AND RESET THE DATE!
/stand/sysinstall running as init on serial console

These are the predefined terminal types available to
sysinstall when running stand-alone.  Please choose the
closest match for your particular terminal.

1 ...................... Standard ANSI terminal.
2 ...................... VT100 or compatible terminal.
3 ...................... FreeBSD system console (color).
4 ...................... FreeBSD system console (monochrome).

5 ...................... xterm terminal emulator.

Your choice: (1-5) 

In short: no need for anything but the minimal-size ISO image as a floppy
replacement. 

-- 
|   / o / /_  _   		wilko at FreeBSD.org
|/|/ / / /(  (_)  Bulte