[syslinux] Adding memdisk or similar when booting linux

[Harald_Jensas at Dell.com]

Just to clearify, I use this method with multiple MEMDISK instances to make a windows SCSI/RAID Storage driver disk available for the Windows installer via MEMDISK.

--
Harald

> -----Original Message-----
> From: syslinux-bounces at zytor.com [mailto:syslinux-bounces at zytor.com] On
> Behalf Of Murali (????? ?????)
> Sent: 13 March 2008 21:37
> To: For discussion of SYSLINUX and tftp-hpa
> Subject: Re: [syslinux] Adding memdisk or similar when booting linux
> 
> If it is for installing windows, you can just run DOS, figure out the
> network driver to use and then start your network driver in the same
> image,
> instead of playing games with multiple instances of MEMDISK. I wrote it
> up
> in http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/DosFloppyImage
> 
> - Murali
> 
> On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 7:53 AM, <Harald_Jensas at dell.com> wrote:
> 
> > Hi Kjetil,
> >
> > I used ISOLINUX, MEMDISK and SYSLINUX to load drivers disk for
> Windows
> > using MEMDISK in a tool I made a few years back.
> >
> > What I did was:
> >
> > - ISOLINUX loads MEMDISK and a gzipped floppy image and boots the A:
> > floppy image.
> > - Floppy image has SYSLINUX that in my case load another floppy image
> > using MEMDISK to create a virtual B: drive.
> > (The reason for loading MEMDISK twice in my case is because of a
> special
> > case in how the Windows installer handles B: drives with driver disks
> > inserted.)
> > - The B: floppy image boots and also run SYSLINUX wich kick of a
> > bootloader that let me change CD and boot from the new CD inserted,
> im my
> > case this is the Windows 2k3 installation media.
> >
> > You should be able to do something similar like:
> >
> > - PXELINUX loads MEMDISK and a gzipped floppy image and boots the A:
> > floppy image. This image contain your driver disk and
> > SYSLINUX+MEMDISK+"Floppy bootable ROM Image".
> > - SYSLINUX could then load MEMDISK that in turn loads and boots the
> > "Floppy bootable ROM Image".
> > - The "Floppy bootable ROM Image" will now do another PXE boot.
> >
> > You can also configure the bootfile loaded by the Floppy bootable ROM
> > Image when this is created. E.g overriding the bootfile specified in
> your
> > DHCP config. E.g the NIC PXE boot get the bootfile info from DHCP
> wich is
> > tftp://server/loadddisk/pxelinux.0 which load MEMDISK and then the
> Floppy
> > bootable ROM Image will load tftp://server/installer/pxelinux.0 which
> in
> > turn start the kernel/initrd for OS installation.
> >
> >
> > I would'nt call this clean, but it should work... :)
> >
> >
> > \\
> > Harald Jensås
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: syslinux-bounces at zytor.com [mailto:syslinux-
> bounces at zytor.com] On
> > > Behalf Of Kjetil.Mikkelborg at kongsberg.com
> > > Sent: 13 March 2008 11:13
> > > To: SYSLINUX at zytor.com
> > > Subject: [syslinux] Adding memdisk or similar when booting linux
> > >
> > > Hi
> > >
> > > Thanx guys for the help on understanding howto read dmi info!
> > > I now have a custom boot menu for install of different linux
> versions
> > > based if they have been installed before (reinstall is ok for
> users,
> > > first install is not), and installquirks like if we detect odd
> > > hardware, we add install options to redhat installer so it can
> install
> > > anyhow (for instance hp dc7800 who needs pci=nommconf as kernel
> append
> > > for booting).
> > >
> > > But now I need to add a driver disk to my install enviroment, and
> when
> > > thinking about it, the nice method would be having syslinux create
> a
> > > memdisk which linux could see when starting install, and load its
> > > drivers from there. The reason i need a memdisk image (or similar),
> is
> > > since often the driver I need is a network driver, which offcourse
> is a
> > > tad difficult getting from the net _After_ the kernel have taken
> over.
> > >
> > > Embedding the initrd would be an option, but would require me to
> change
> > > all install initrd's for every driver I put in my driver disk, and
> also
> > > it would require me to also allways modify new releases with custom
> > > initrd. But with a memdisk approach, the only image who would need
> > > attention would be the driver disk image alone (which actually
> supports
> > > multi versions)
> > >
> > > Is there any clean approches to achive this? like starting first
> > > memdisk, load a image to it, and then start linux (all thru
> pxelinux?)
> > >
> > > --Kjetil
> > > _______________________________________________
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> >
> 
> 
> --
> Murali
> 
> கற்றது கை மண் அளவு, கல்லாதது உலகளவு
> (What we know is only a handful, what we dont is the rest of the world)
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