GRUB, CD and extended floppy formats: HOWTO

[Thierry Laronde]

Hello,

The patches have been sent to the GRUB mailing list.

To use the new features, I have attached a script (to be run under Linux
since it uses loosetup) to create virtual bootable disks.

The name of the script is `mkbimage', Make a Bootable IMAGE using GRUB
as a bootloader.

Usage: mkbimage [-h] [-V] [-t TYPE] [-d DIRECTORY] [-s FS_TYPE] -f
TAR_FILE

type:

mkbimage -h 

to display the help. It should be self-explanatory!

In brief.

You create a tar archive with all the files that you want to put on the
virtual disk INCLUDING the ones for the correct version of GRUB. All the
remaining stuff is handled by the script which creates an empty file of
the correct size, partitions it (in case of HD emulation), put a
filesystem on it (only ext2 at the moment, but this is just a limitation
of the script), run GRUB with the correct options, that is uses `setup'
and the `geometry' function with new options to set the correct geometry.

Once this is done, you have a virtual bootable disk, that can be used on
floppies (1.20, 1.44, 2.88, 1.68, 1.74) or as a HD for El Torito
emulation.

The script displays at the end a remainder of the command to use with
mkisofs.

You than have all the features of GRUB (chaining different menu files,
loading different kernels and so on, network boot etc.).

Enjoy! [and test...]
-- 
Thierry Laronde <address@hidden>
Site Debian Francophone (aka SDF) : http://www.debian-france.org/

mkbimage
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