[ On Friday, May 5, 2000 at 21:18:07 (-0700), Grey Wolf wrote: ]
> Subject: re: INSTALL kernel size 
>
> 1.  I'd actually like to be able to boot from an Exabyte!

yeah, that'd be OK too -- doesn't it work now though?

> 2.  PCs can boot from the net -- if they have a BIOS chip on the NIC.

So I've been told.  I found an ISA NIC with a PROM on it in a surplus
store junk box for $5, and I do have friends with PROM burners, but I've
also been told that you need a special PROM for each type of OS.  Anyway,
until someone writes a PROM for a PC that has a sensible command-line
interface and which can talk to a serial console, I'm not too interested
in playing games with PCs -- I'll use them where I have to but not
otherwise.  (OpenFirmware/i386 anyone? ;-)

> I somehow don't think it's possible since the EXB-8200 can't provide a
> blocksize smaller than 1k, and the Suns require a 512-byte boot block
> size.

While it is true that the physical block size of EXB-8200 format tapes
is 1024 bytes, the drive can do variable-length reads (though I don't
know if the boot loader knows how to request one or what happens by
default in the way the boot loader formats its read request), and the
logical block size can be set to almost anything you want within certain
limits.  According to the user's manual I have the 8200's minimum
logical block length is one (1) byte (and indeed you can send a SCSI
command requesting that the drive report the maximum and minimum
supported logical block sizes).  Given my still limited understanding of
Exabyte tapes I'd guess that if you write a boot tape using the expected
block size then the PROM should be able to read it without any problem.

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods@acm.org>      <robohack!woods>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>