CD boot
Since Ingo and I started working on CD booting at BeGeistert, we have (or rather, he has) written a TAR file system for the boot loader.
When your IBM compatible computer boots, the BIOS emulates a boot floppy for a CD-ROM instead of giving you access to the disk directly. In order to access the whole disk, we need a CD-ROM driver - and therefore, we also need the kernel to execute the driver.
Be's and our solution writes the kernel and all modules needed for booting from CD-ROM (or any other device unsupported by the BIOS) behind the boot loader to the boot floppy (ie. boot session of the CD). As on-disk structure, we use standard gzipped TAR files that contain all the needed files.
The boot loader will start the kernel from the TAR file, and the running kernel will then detect the CD-ROM and try booting from there - at least that's the theory. Right now, we have the TAR file system working in the userland boot loader test environment.
Getting Haiku to boot from CD to the usual Terminal window is my first assignment as an Haiku Inc. employee. If no unforeseen problems arise, I hope to get it done today or tomorrow.
8 Comments:
Wow, I can snarky comments !
I think this needs to feel like a real job so ...
No bloging at work !
We don't pay you to surf the internet and download movies ! I ought to fire you.
Seriously though, don't get burnt (Bernd?) out.
I understand updating this blog as part of my job - as long as I code more than I write :-)
I don't think I can burn out that fast, anyway.
Date: 13 October 2005
To: All Haiku Employee
From: mikesum32
Subject: Typos, office dress code, office softball, picnic
Please ignore my typos and my tendency to leave out words.
It has come to my attention that certain employee have been coming to work without proper attire.
Business casual is easy on all of us. Please note that mustard stains, sandals, ungroomed facial hair, and mini skirts are not business casual.
Please review office dress code in the employee handbook.
If such violations continue we will be forced to require a pure business dress code.
We will be collecting donations for the Haiku softball team this week.
Anyone who want to join please see Czeslaw.
And one more thing, those of you that are coming to the crazy-hat-Happy-Halloween picnic please let Jon know how many friends you are bringing and what entree.
please post screenshots even from just stupid terminals.
crowds are drawn very easily by it...I for one cannot wait to see some pics.
=)
Question. Have you considered adding the RAM_FILE_SYSTEM to the kernal?
Not only did this appoach speed up the Amiga when booting, but while doing development it meant writes went to the RAM: instead to the drives - crashes during writes thus did no damage your original boot files.
And for simple resets, rebooting off the RAM: is just fast, fast, fast.
I considered a RAM file system to speed up the boot process from CD. But I am not sure if I'll find the time to play with it before R1.
If it would be possible to seemlessly integrate the RAM file system with the mounted boot volume (so that the user wouldn't notice the difference), something like this might be worthwhile for normal booting as well.
respect Axel, your speed is amazing :-)
Axel...i know this is not your duty but i think we really need some official haiku builds. IE: a build every week...
Surfing the web i can't find haiku images and i can't build the sources on my own.
Maybe you can talk to other devs and find a solution to this problem...
Thx!
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