Booting without filesystem

.maverick · Apprentice Joined: 29 Jan 2004 Posts: 159 Location: Bonn

I'm trying to build a minimal operating system and I don't see any reason to use more than an embedded initramfs (as there won't be changes to the data anyway). Is there a bootloader minimal enough to just be a mbr that boots the bzImage lying at some specific sector? Is that possible with lilo somehow?

John R. Graham · Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2010 2:07 pm Post subject:

I think you're making it harder for yourself than you need to. Grub supports a number of filesystems; if all you're doing is loading a kernel with embedded initramfs, then, okay, but why create additional work for yourself? Just create an ext2 filesystem sufficiently large to hold the kernel image. Leave the rest of the hard drive unparitioned if you like.

- John
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.maverick · Apprentice Joined: 29 Jan 2004 Posts: 159 Location: Bonn

Hmm, but is there a program or script to do this? I have the bzImage ready with an embedded initramfs, but I don't know how to (easily) make a hd-image from that.

John R. Graham · Posted: Wed Jun 09, 2010 11:56 am Post subject:

Again, you're making this too hard. The bzImage is ready to be loaded by grub and requires no tranformation. Just copy it with cp or any other method you like. Do you need explicit step-by-step instructions? If so, tell me a little more about the build environment. Also, please state what device (/dev/hd* or /dev/sd*) the boot hard drive is on your build machine.

- John
_________________
I can confirm that I have received between 0 and 499 National Security Letters.