On 21 Jun 2001, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> No, I still don't follow.
All these have happened.
Scenario one:
linuxbios in flash, blank hda, cdrom with redhat install.
So as the machine boots up, and
prompts with
Alternative Boot: hit <return>
I hit return.
The result is that the kernel mounts the ramdisk with nbc in it as
root. and runs /sbin/nbc.
Once in nbc, I mount the cdrom, then tell the machine too boot
/root/kernels.generic.gz
Then I do the install
Scenario two:
I have an EXT2 file system on hda1, and an XFS on hda2. I want to test a
new kernel on hda2, not the one in flash. I don't want to flash it just
yet.
I hit <return> as before, and go through the same steps. I mount XFS, then
boot the kernel.
In nbc, I can use the kernel to mount arbitrary partitions, boot arbitrary
kernels, etc.
Scenario three:
I want to netboot a kernel, nfs-mount root, and reload the hda.
I hit <return>, drop into /sbin/nbc, specify a netboot, and away I go.
Scenario four:
Someone wants to use VALinux system imager. I need to boot a kernel from
floppy.
So I hit <return> as before, drop into /sbin/nbc, then boot from the
floppy.
ron
