I've been scripting up procedures to add new bootable disks to a system
and noticed that on i386 the "installboot" program avoids one obvious
step.

On sparc it seems I must do the following:

        cp /usr/mdec/boot /stand-sd1
	umount /stand-sd1
	installboot -v -m sparc /dev/rsd0a /usr/mdec/bootxx boot
	mount /stand-sd1

However on i386 I need only do:

	umount /stand-sd1
	/usr/mdec/installboot -v /usr/mdec/biosboot_com0.sym /dev/rsd1a
	mount /stand-sd1

as installboot will mount the named partition on a temporary directory
and copy the second-stage boot program to the partition's root
directory, then unmount it again and update the boot sector properly.

Here's a real example in case you've not seen it work on i386:

	# /usr/mdec/installboot -v /usr/mdec/biosboot_com0.sym /dev/rsd1a  
	/usr/mdec/biosboot_com0.sym: entry point 0x8063000
	proto bootblock size 48128
	room for 10 filesystem blocks at 0x580
	/dev/sd1a is not mounted
	mounted /dev/sd1a at /tmp/installboot23214a
	unmounting
	Will load 79 blocks.
	dblk: 1504, num: 16
	dblk: 1520, num: 16
	dblk: 1536, num: 16
	dblk: 1552, num: 16
	dblk: 1568, num: 15
	BSD partition starts at sector 63

Shouldn't the sparc installboot do the same?

-- 
						Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098                  VE3TCP            RoboHack <woods@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>          Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>