On Tue, Mar 23, 2004 at 03:26:21AM -0500, Rick Thomas wrote: > Hi Jeremie! > > I downloaded the images.
Cool. > The first thing I noticed was that the root.img was more than > 1.440 MB long. > > The second thing that I noticed was that "fdformat" and > "superformat" don't work on powerpc hardware, so I can't create a > 1.920 MB formatted floppy to put root.img onto. For example, when > I try to do "fdformat /dev/fd0" I get an error message: > "ioctl(FDFMTBEG): Inappropriate ioctl for device". So the largest > image I can write to media is 1.440 MB. > > I decided to try the boot.img anyway since it was the right size. > I could at least see if my systems would boot with it. > > The third thing I noticed was that the floppy drives hadn't been > used for years (literally) and they were *dirty*. The blank > floppy disks I had around the house were about the same age, so I > couldn't trust them either. So I went out and got a drive > cleaning kit and a box of brand-new floppy disks. (I had to go to > three stores before I found one that carried floppy drive cleaning > kits. Floppy disks are seriously going out of style!) After a > thorough cleaning... > > I was able to write the boot.img and read it back without error. > The original boot.img and the read-back file compared bit-for-bit, > so I figured I had a good one. > > First, I tried it on the machine that wrote it (a beige G3 at 300 > MHz). It succeeded in booting (got a "happy-mac" icon that > changed after a while to an icon of Tux Penguin snuggling up to a > happy-mac.) Of course, when it ejected the boot floppy (presumably > because it wanted the root floppy inserted -- though there was no > indication on the screen that this was the case. I assume that is > normal?) I had no root floppy to insert. But I felt good that I'd > gotten that far! > > Next I tried it on a different machine (a powermac 6500 at > 225MHz). It got to the point of the Tux-and-Mac icon, but the > drive made grinding noises and it never ejected the disk. It just > hung. I believe that the floppy drive on that machine is > terminally old/tired/flakey, even after a couple of thorough > cleanings. It's not altogether surprising, since in a previous > life, this machine was used (and abused!) by students in a public > computer lab. I'll try swapping the floppy drive with a known > good one and try again. Though that may take a couple of days. > > So, can we make a root.img file that will fit on a 1.440 MB disk? I think Jeremie was also struggling with this. I believe it is possible to split the root.img, but not sure about the principle. Jeremie, what was the latest comment on that ? Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
