Holger Wansing <hwans...@mailbox.org> writes: > Hi, > > David <bouncingc...@gmail.com> wrote (Sat, 9 Oct 2021 21:56:24 +1100): >> I see that the suggestion to use 'cat' comes >> from #604839. >> >> Yes, 'cat' will "work", however I feel there is no >> good reason to use 'cat' there. >> >> Because the purpose of 'cat' is for concatenating >> multiple files, and it also requires a shell redirection >> from stdout. Both are unnecessary here. >> >> I suggest this command should be used: >> # cp /usr/lib/syslinux/mbr.bin /dev/sdX >
Wow that's a new capability :-) IIRC cp couldn't historically write
directly to block devices, and DEST had to be either a target file or
directory. It makes me wonder if install(1) has also gained spooky new
capabilities :-p
> The documentation in the syslinux package also has
>
> A simple MBR, roughly on par with the one installed by DOS (but
> unencumbered), is included in the SYSLINUX distribution. To install
> it under Linux, simply type:
>
> cat mbr.bin > /dev/XXX
>
> ... where /dev/XXX is the device you wish to install it on.
>
> so I guess there is some good reason to do it this way.
>
Holger, do you think this could be from the days of
cat bootloader.bin kernel.image userspace.bin > /block/device
?
AFAICT these semantics aren't totally totally anachronistic, because of
systemd-boot's "unified image" or "unified kernel image" support...but
that said, I'm not sure if this is an example of simple
appended/concatenated images.
Best,
Nicholas
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