I'm afraid that Linux cannot reside on a DOS partition without some
special means to protect the parts of the filesystem that Linux relies on.
Certain security features in Linux/UNIX- file ownership & the permission
modes- are features inherent in the filesystem, not the OS. FAT
filesystems do not have these features, and so any program that makes use
of them simply cannot run off a FAT partition. UMSDOS is a way of
"protecting" Linux from the problems (well, some of them anyway) of FAT.
Using loadlin, the "root=" part should always point to the root partition.
The kernel image (which is usually present in /boot) should reside on the
DOS partition with the loadlin executable. This is because loadlin cannot
read ext2 filesystems. The kernel is loaded from DOS via loadlin, DOS
gets pushed out of memory, and Linux takes over. The Linux kernel can
read ext2 (unlike DOS) and then gets the root partition- from the loadlin
parameter- and mounts it at /.
I suppose- although I'm not sure how this could be implemented- that it
would be possible to have an ext2 filesystem contained in a file on a FAT
partition. I don't know if the kernel would accept a DOS path\filename
for the root partition (probably not), but if you can round up a team of
hackers, you might be able to use this to use Linux from a FAT partition
without usinng UMSDOS.
-Matt Stegman
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
On Mon, 16 Aug 1999, Sean Armstrong wrote:
> I have installed the new Mandrake 6.0. However I can not seem to get
> loadlin running. I set it to my new kernel and directed it towards the
> root partition. I think the second part is my problem. Should I have
> directed it towards my boot partition? Anyways, it begins to load linux
> and then panics and stops. Also I had the same problems when I tried to
> use Mandrake's lnx4win software to load linux on to a dos partition.
> The readme for this is vague at best and I was wondering if anyone knows
> of a better source to direct me how to load linux onto a dos partition
> without the use of umsdos.
>
> thanx,
> SA
