On Tue, May 15, 2001 at 11:57:11AM +0100, Alan Buxey wrote: > hi, > > > Can you boot from an external 1.76MB floppy ? > > yes. its treated just as the old classic external floppies that I'm sure > most people had with their A500's > > > but 1.76MB floppies would be easily supported, almost nothing needs to be > > changed, apart from the rescue disk creation. Does someone with a 1.76MB > > floppy volunteer for that ? > > if you give me the instructions and details I can test this.
Well, just format a floppy disk, but the bootstrap program on it, a linux kernel (in compressed form) and a little script that will boot it, from a ramdisk. Maybe the script could ask a few question before booting or something such, don't know, what would be best to ask ? You could the follwoing settings : 1first question : From where to boot ? a) from the floppy provided kernel and root image (root=/dev/mem or whatever) b) from a user provided partition c) into amigados, so the user can play himself. Don't know if the floppy would be able to contain the needed thing to provide a working amiga shell or workbench though. 2nd question : provide additional parameters. a) video option : aga, pm2fb, other, ... b) other needed options (don't know about them, ...) c) anything else ... or maybe only one question, which response would provide all of the above, like having a a') and b') above, but where the user can provide a more complete and general kernel options line. What do you think about it ? > > Also, is there a way (under linux) to detect if the floppy is of the 1.76 or > > the 880 variety ? > > dont know - I always believe that floppies are too dumb..you only know > what you can do when things you try fail ;-) What about trying to read past the 880 Kb with dd or something such ? Friendly, Sven Luther
