I am trying to make a boot root floppy using kernel 2.4 but I am running into a problem with rdev. I follow step by step the instructions in http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/Bootdisk-HOWTO/ to create a boot root floppy without LILO. I load the kernel into sector 0 of the floppy and the root image directly after it. When I boot with the floppy it gives me a kernel panic unable to mount device 2:00. And it says the the root device = "" is invalid. I used rdev to set the root device to be /dev/fd0 but when I use rdev to read the root device it tells me it is set to /dev/floppy/0.

I am thinking this is because the Mandrake 8.2 I am running is running devfs to create this redirected device and the boot kernel does not have that available. I have tried to use my /boot/vmlinuz kernel, I have tried compiling my own kernel with floppy, ext2&3 and ramdisk compiled in and I have tried vmlinuz kernels from other boot floppy images that I know work. None of them can get past this kernel panic on device 2:00. Correct me if I'm wrong my the /dev/fd0 I tried to set as the root device is a block device at 1:00 so why does rdev assign /dev/floppy/0 and why is it reporting 2:00 as the device?

Has anyone succeeded at creating a boot root floppy from this How-To?

Does anyone have a boot root floppy image that does not use LILO or SysLinux?

Does anyone know if the How-To works for 2.4 kernels?

Does anyone have an explanation as to why the How-To does not talk about how to use initrd?

The How-To only shows the use of gzip for creating root images. Is there anything special that needs to be done to use a bzip2 compressed image?

Would I have better luck if I did this from a 2.2 Linux system?

I am not expecting anyone to solve this problems for me. With todays great tools that come with the newest distributions this may seem like a waste of time but I have a curious nature and I need to know how this works. Most boot root images use LILO or SysLinux. I would like to find a working boot root image that does not use these.

SysLinux makes this so easy and the LILO version works also but I really want to put the envelope for size and create a dedicated application floppy.

Roy Souther
www.SiliconTao.com

Changing the way people do business.

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