Suitability for trying to get a floppy based install instructions into fc5 release notes?

[Jef Spaleta]

Using  http://www.bhamu.net/index.php/2005/06/15/fedora-core-4-floppy-disk-install/
as a reference, is it suitable and feasible to try to make a similar
solution for fc5 available under the "official" fedora project
umbrella?

I'm not saying make the set of floppies available as part of the
install media(though that would be the holy grail scenario). But as a
first time out... if the community tracked the test releases and made
a floppy install method similar to what is outlined in the url for
testers to test.. could a home for it be found on the official
download pages and an instructions on how to use it included in the
release notes for the final fc5 release?

-jef

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

Am Freitag, den 02.09.2005, 14:58 -0400 schrieb Jeff Spaleta:
>  Using 
> http://www.bhamu.net/index.php/2005/06/15/fedora-core-4-floppy-disk-install/
>  as a reference, is it suitable and feasible to try to make a similar
>  solution for fc5 available under the "official" fedora project
>  umbrella? 
Sound quite complicated; In such a case I would do the following to get
the install started (warning, untested for some time, but should work
iirc)

- create a partition (name it hda1 in this example) that you want to use
for linux later and format it with fat/fat32  (note: you can also use a
random fat-partition and skip format)
- copy initrd.img vmlinuz to it
- on a random linux-system create a grub boot-floppy with 
cat /usr/share/grub/i386-redhat/stage? > /dev/fd0 
(can this be done in windows/dos somehow?)
- start from this floppy-disk
- at the grub-prompt type:
root (hd0,0)
kernel vmlinuz
initrd initrd.img
boot
- install fedora (you can reformat or delete hda1 now if you wish)

Or did i missing anything important here?
-- 
Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora(a)leemhuis.info&gt;

[Jeremy Utley]

On 9/2/05, Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora(a)leemhuis.info&gt; wrote:
>  
>  
>  - on a random linux-system create a grub boot-floppy with
>  cat /usr/share/grub/i386-redhat/stage? > /dev/fd0
>  (can this be done in windows/dos somehow?) 

I have saved on my webserver a "dd" image of what I call my "Grub Emergency

Boot" floppy - works well when I must reinstall my Windows partition and it 
toasts Grub out of my boot record - I can use it to boot into Linux and 
eventually re-write Grub to the MBR. This image is suitable for use with 
RAWRITE/RAWRITEWIN, which can be found from most Linux distribution sites.

http://www.jutley.org/bootdisks/grubboot.img

Also included is sbootmgr.dsk, which is a DD image of a Smart Boot Manager 
floppy, allowing a system to be booted from CD even when it's old enough 
that the BIOS doesn't support it.

Jeremy

[Rahul Sundaram]

Jeff Spaleta wrote:

> Using 
> http://www.bhamu.net/index.php/2005/06/15/fedora-core-4-floppy-disk-install/
> as a reference, is it suitable and feasible to try to make a similar
> solution for fc5 available under the "official" fedora project
> umbrella?
>  
Maintainer of this project would get the code into Fedora Extras .  Even 
otherwise it could also get it a honorable mention in the FC 
Installation guide as a community effort. That should get it enough 
visibility.

regards
Rahul

[Jef Spaleta]

On 9/2/05, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  Maintainer of this project would get the code into Fedora Extras . 
> Even
>  otherwise it could also get it a honorable mention in the FC
>  Installation guide as a community effort. That should get it enough
>  visibility. 
actually ive been made painfully aware that bringing this up...was a bad idea.
The technical specifics of whats being used in that reference url
aren't supportable by the available infrastructure. Its not enough to
just shove images to extras..the images can't natively be built.   So
really this specific technique is a non-starter and i didn't realize
it.

-jef

[Kip Thomas]

would the recent discussion on slashdot about TCC help?

TCC can compile a kernel on the fly and boot it.

http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/tcc/

On 9/2/05, Jeff Spaleta <jspaleta(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  
>  On 9/2/05, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  > Maintainer of this project would get the code into Fedora Extras . Even
>  > otherwise it could also get it a honorable mention in the FC
>  > Installation guide as a community effort. That should get it enough
>  > visibility.
>  
>  actually ive been made painfully aware that bringing this up...was a bad 
>  idea.
>  The technical specifics of whats being used in that reference url
>  aren't supportable by the available infrastructure. Its not enough to
>  just shove images to extras..the images can't natively be built. So
>  really this specific technique is a non-starter and i didn't realize
>  it.
>  
>  -jef
>  
>  --
>  fedora-devel-list mailing list
>  fedora-devel-list(a)redhat.com
>  http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
>

[Luciano Miguel Ferreira Rocha]

On Fri, Sep 02, 2005 at 04:21:41PM -0400, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
>  On 9/2/05, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  > Maintainer of this project would get the code into Fedora Extras .  Even
>  > otherwise it could also get it a honorable mention in the FC
>  > Installation guide as a community effort. That should get it enough
>  > visibility.
>  
>  actually ive been made painfully aware that bringing this up...was a bad idea.
>  The technical specifics of whats being used in that reference url
>  aren't supportable by the available infrastructure. Its not enough to
>  just shove images to extras..the images can't natively be built.   So
>  really this specific technique is a non-starter and i didn't realize
>  it. 
What's missing to make it possible? FreeDOS? Could other possibility be
using a very limited kernel + kexec?

-- 
lfr
0/0