Re: Hurd bootable from cd?

[Marcus Brinkmann]

On Tue, Sep 12, 2000 at 08:50:39AM -0500, Neal H Walfield wrote:
  I'd like to know if it is possible  to create a cdrom with hurd on it so
  that it can boot  and you can use it without having  to install it. I've
  done it with linux,  I'd like to know if it is possible  (and how) to do
  it with hurd.
 
 There is one main problem with this:  the iso9660 filesystem is broken
 (at the moment) and does not support symbolic links.

I looked into it, it is pretty hopeless. We can't use file_start as inode
number, because links don't have one, but we can't use easily the directory
record offset either, because of the redirected directory feature of
RockRidge. But maybe it is possible to work around it, I just don't have
the nerves to look into it and grok the rockridge stuff well enough.

Inodeless filesystems are a real PITA.
 
 Anyways, assuming the two above work, you will need to compile iso9660
 static so that it can manage the root partition.  Additionally, you will
 need to create a small iso9660 library much like the one for ext2 that
 serverboot can use to read the server off of the partition before the
 root partition is mounted.

I would put an ext2fs filesystem on the CD.

Another problem would be to make a life file system in the sense that you
can write to a ramdisk, and still see the CD content below. If we just had
shadowfs, this would be an ideal task for it.
 
Marcus

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Marcus Brinkmann  GNUhttp://www.gnu.orgfor public PGP Key 
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Re: Hurd bootable from cd?

[Neal H Walfield]

 I'd like to know if it is possible  to create a cdrom with hurd on it so
 that it can boot  and you can use it without having  to install it. I've
 done it with linux,  I'd like to know if it is possible  (and how) to do
 it with hurd.

There is one main problem with this:  the iso9660 filesystem is broken
(at the moment) and does not support symbolic links.

Additionally, I do not remember grub ever recognizing my cdrom (which is
not to say that it doesn't).

Anyways, assuming the two above work, you will need to compile iso9660
static so that it can manage the root partition.  Additionally, you will
need to create a small iso9660 library much like the one for ext2 that
serverboot can use to read the server off of the partition before the
root partition is mounted.

If you get this far, I imagine that you are 90% the way there.

-Neal

-- 
Neal H Walfield
University of Massachusetts at Lowell
[EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED]