>>>>> On Mon, 19 Feb 1996, "Eric S. Hvozda" <hvozda@netcom.com> writes:

> On Tue, 20 Feb 1996 01:26:54 +1100 (EST)  darrenr@cyber.com.au wrote:
> > 
> > I'm attempting to make a multi-boot pc with freebsd & netbsd.
> > 
> > Unfortunately, having done freebsd first, I can't seem to make
> > the inst-11.fs floppy work :-(
> 
> This isn't going to work; well not the way you envision anyway.  All
> the *BSDs use the same OS id in the partition table on the i386 (last I
> looked anyway).  One of them would have to be modified to coexist with
> the others if you want to do it via a OS boot selector.
> 
> However, assuming that Net boot blocks can load a Free kernel (or
> vice versa), you could load both OSs (with some minor trickery)
> and be able to select the one of choice at the boot blocks.  This seems
> like a pain to me tho...


I'm not sure that this will work (because of ZMAGIC v. QMAGIC executables), 
but there is a guy working on a multiformat boot loader for use with 
mach4/lites/hurd/etc.  Last I heard, he was looking for beta-testers.  His 
thing can boot FreeBSD or NetBSD kernels, as well as Mach "multiboot" 
(several files, not previously linked together).

Contact Erich Stefan Boleyn (erich@uruk.org) directly, or drop me a line 
and I can forward his announcement.


Tom Pavel

Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
pavel@slac.stanford.edu                 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/~pavel/