Subject: Re: bootable amd64 installation CD
To: Ray Phillips <r.phillips@jkmrc.com>
From: Manuel Bouyer <bouyer@antioche.eu.org>
List: port-amd64
Date: 07/11/2007 00:31:33
On Mon, Jul 09, 2007 at 06:13:58PM +1000, Ray Phillips wrote:
> What's the procedure now for making a bootable CD containing the 
> installation files for NetBSD/amd64?
> 
> I've just built a -current release (from sources CVS updated on 21 
> June) and found amd64 doesn't have an equivalent file to i386's 
> installation/floppy/boot-big.fs so I can't follow the steps in this 
> URL:
> 
>   http://netbsd.org/docs/bootcd.html#i386image
> 
> I found that build.sh has an iso-image option which solves my 
> immediate problem, but what if I want to make a bootable CD with 
> non-standard stuff on it?

Read the stuff in distrib/common/Makefile.bootcd :)
basically you use makefs -t cd9660 and installboot /usr/mdec/bootxx_cd9660
(don't forget to put a INSTALL kernel with populated ramdisk on the root
of the CD, and /usr/mdec/boot :)

> 
> What is the native boot format Manuel mentions in:
> 
>   http://www.netbsd.org/changes/changes-5.0.html
> 
> How does it compare to El Torito?  Is the difference just that it's 
> able to ignore the 2.88 MB floppy emulation limit?

The CD is accessed directly, the bios doens't translate it to a fake
floppy of disk drive. So you need a boot loader which can read the
kernel from CD; that what bootxx_cd9660 is for.

-- 
Manuel Bouyer <bouyer@antioche.eu.org>
     NetBSD: 26 ans d'experience feront toujours la difference
--