> Date: Tue, 11 Apr 1995 09:54:24 -0400
> From: Chris G Demetriou <Chris_G_Demetriou@lagavulin.pdl.cs.cmu.edu>
> 
> > Another way to make a multi-architecture CDROM is to just put each
> > architecture in a separate top-level directory and use a loopback
> > mount to make the appropriate one appear as root at runtime.
> > This lets the entire CDROM use the standard iso9660 format.

> I've thought about this; there's a chicken and egg problem here.

[ how to get the right init, mount program, shell, ...]

> yeah, you could hack the kernel.  or prompt.  however, the latter's
> not very nice if you want to be able to have a "one big button"
> install program.  8-)

Sun handled this on their CDROMs using a Sun disklabel with one
partition for each architecture.  Unfortunately, this only useful
if all your machines understand the same file system format.

Also, we would run out of partions if all ports were included.
One could include just the most popular ones, but I'd rather
see a more clever scheme than that.

Another way around the problem is to provide a miniroot image for
each port along with reasonably convenient tools to help the user
get that miniroot image onto some media the machine can boot.
(A diskette for most machines; a tape or NFS server for Suns.)

Gordon