Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 14:41:19 +0000 From: Ian Dowse <iedowse@maths.tcd.ie> To: Andrew Hesford <ajh3@hecubus.bsdonline.org> Cc: Sean Kelly <smkelly@zombie.org>, freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG, iedowse@maths.tcd.ie Subject: Re: compress bootdisk Message-ID: <200102211441.aa46025@salmon.maths.tcd.ie> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 21 Feb 2001 02:05:30 CST." <20010221020530.A41129@cec.wustl.edu>
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In message <20010221020530.A41129@cec.wustl.edu>, Andrew Hesford writes: >kzip and kgzip strip the kernel of its symbols, so that it is >ultra-compact for rescue and install disks. More importantly, kgzip produces an ELF kernel image that can be loaded directly by the bootblocks. To boot a kernel compressed with gzip requires loader(8) which takes up 100-200k of disk space. Where space permits, it is preferable to use loader(8) and gzip'd kernels. Loader allows much more control over the boot process, and un-stripped kernels contain symbols that may be needed by some utilities. Just newfs the floppy, copy /boot/loader and kernel.gz to it, and loader will automatically uncompress and boot the kernel. Note that the gzipped kernel must have a '.gz' extension, and to refer to the the kernel from the loader prompt, you must not type the extension i.e. use load my_kernel and not: load my_kernel.gz When trying to squash a large kernel onto a small filesystem (e.g 1.4M floppy), sometimes /boot/loader just takes up too much space. This is when it makes sense to use kgzip. All you need to do after newfs'ing the floppy is to copy the kgzip'd kernel to it. You can give the kernel any name (extension doesn't matter), but the handiest name is 'kernel', since that is what the bootblocks try to load by default. Ian To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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