This file explains how to install EMILE to boot from a floppy -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How to Create a floppy from rescue disk image -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can find floppy image from the package emile-rescue Under linux, the command to dump image to floppy is: # dd if=emile-rescue-x.y.bin of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 conv=sync then, you can eject floppy with: # eject /dev/fd0 If you are using MacOS, use MakeDebianFloppy AppleScript (you must use a floppy image with a size of exactly 1474560 bytes). If you are neither using linux, nor MacOS, please refer to rawrite page -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How to Change the kernel boot arguments -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The command to set kernel boot arguments is emile-set-cmdline: emile-set-cmdline * is the floppy image or a device file (/dev/fd0) to set * is new kernel boot arguments For instance, to set root filesystem on disk 1 partition 4 # emile-set-cmdline floppy.img "root=/dev/sda4" To set root filesystem on ramdisk # emile-set-cmdline floppy.img "root=/dev/ramdisk ramdisk_size=2048" To set root filesystem on NFS # emile-set-cmdline floppy.img \ "root=/dev/nfs ip=dhcp nfsroot=192.168.100.1:/tftboot/192.168.100.51/" You can also read current boot arguments from floppy: # emile-set-cmdline -g /dev/fd0 Current command line: "root=/dev/ramdisk ramdisk_size=2048" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How to Create your floppy image with your kernel -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can now compress kernel with gzip (bzip2 is not supported by EMILE): # gzip -9 vmlinux You can copy first and second level bootloader and kernel to floppy: # emile-install -f first -s second -k vmlinux.gz /dev/fd0 And finally, you can set kernel boot arguments: # emile-set-cmdline /dev/fd0 "root=/dev/sda4" If you have a ramdisk, the two last steps become: # emile-install -f first -s second -k vmlinux.gz -r ramdisk.gz /dev/fd0 # emile-set-cmdline /dev/fd0 "root=/dev/ramdisk ramdisk_size=2048" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurent Vivier