Re: [Rule-list] small utility disk

[Devon]

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On Saturday 02 March 2002 09:21 pm, address@hidden wrote:

> I use a dos boot disk that has fdisk, format, mem, scandisk, and a
> text editor. I would be very interested in a linux disk with the same
> type of functionality. Maybe even additional diagnostics or at least
> hardware reporting.

The boot disk at this point includes about 85 commands, the syslinux 
bootloader, and the kernel.

$ ls bin
busybox  cp    echo    hostname  mknod  pidof  sed    tar     vi
cat      cpio  false   kill      more   ps     sh     touch   zcat
chgrp    date  grep    ln        mount  pwd    sleep  true
chmod    dd    gunzip  ls        msh    rm     stty   umount
chown    df    gzip    mkdir     mv     rmdir  sync   uname

$ ls usr/bin/
clear    du    free  killall  rpm2cpio  tee   uniq    which   yes
basename  cut      env   head  md5sum   sort      test  uptime  whoami
chvt      dirname  find  id    reset    tail      tty   wc      xargs

$ ls usr/sbin/
chroot

$ ls sbin/
fdisk  init   lsmod     mke2fs  modprobe    reboot  swapoff
halt   klogd  makedevs  mkswap  pivot_root  rmmod   swapon


> This is an ideal companion to any rule install. Use this disk to boot
> and check basic system functionality. Then install rule.

Yes, it doubles quite nicely as a rescue disk. If the installer doesn't 
work out, I'm still keeping the bootdisk utility around. :)

> Is it possible to boot from a floppy and then mount a cd reader? This
> would be good if the cd reader didn't boot. I do think a utility boot
> disk needs to be rolled into rule.

No problem at all. The proper devices are already setup in the ram disk.
Just boot and say 'mount /dev/hd? /mnt/cdrom'

> Is there anything I could do to help? Do you plan on posting a disk
> img of this disk?

I will post a disk image, (as well as putting whatever files might be 
useful into CVS) but I'd like to finish the install script/program so 
that you can install a system from the disk.
Once I have that working, even in some crude fashion, I'll post the image 
file.

As for helping, if you can write the C program previously mentioned, or 
try building a static binary of cfdisk that will use less than 150k of 
space after it's compressed, or....
Then by all means, jump right in! :)

- -D

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