> 
> | BTW if you want some more reasons, I need the next binary distribution
> | to also have a new rootfs image the old one is too out of date now.
> | This is te most logical time to make the change obviously.
> 
> Sorry to bring up an old tired subject, but have we been able to come up
> with something better than rootfs?

If we could get BFFS to accept construction of links and special files from
a tar command, the partions could be setup directly from the sun-lamp 
binary distributions on the AmigaDOS side. BFFS does come with ln and mknod 
programs, but then a separate script needs to exist to call these for all
the items tar could not generate. The code is in BFFS to handle these, we
just need a special tar source and maybe C libraries to build in these
features.

With this we could do away with the rootfs and just build up the partitions
to whatever size the user wanted.

> 
> I can see that there'd always be a need for some bootstrap partition,
> but that ought to be a tiny throw-away thing.  For example, you copy
> it onto the rsd6b swap/tmp partition, boot with / on that.  Bootstrap
> means newfs, mount, mt, restore or tar and a few things like that.
> 
> If I understand the part about MAKEDEV and the kernel file, those of
> us who already have a root partition won't need to install another
> rootfs, I'm just thinking that as this system gets more mature it
> ought to be possible to make the initial installation and upgrades
> more flexible than copying a raw rootfs.
> 
> Would the above work today?  Can I force the kernel to come up with
> / on the swap partition, without fooling around with HDToolBox, and
> of course with the other partitions available for mounting?

This should work if you use the "-b" option to loadbsd and tell it to use
the swap partition where you placed the bootstrap rootfs. I have done this
and it seems to work. Just don't go into multi-user mode.

You could even use the current rootfs, except many of the utilities for
seting up the filesystems are now way out of date.

> 
> 	Donn Cave, donn@cac.washington.edu
> 


-- 
Alan Bair             		MCTG AMCU DSCS
Motorola, Inc.            	    (Design Software &
Mail Stop OE-320		     Computer Services)
6501 William Cannon Dr. West	(512) 891-2336
Austin, TX  78735-8598          abair@amcu-tx.sps.mot.com

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