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One handy tool for booting linux systems and mounting the root partition is Loadlin. Now, Loadlin is *really* old, but there have been many times it has saved our sorry arses. You can get loadlin here. Loadlin needs some kind of *DOS on the floppy to boot from. MS-DOS 6.22 works fine; however, if you would like something that is maintained and free, you might try FreeDOS. [DR-DOS? Was it because the DR dudes were relaxing by the pool and didn't want to talk to the IBM suits when they called? That is how Agatha remembers hearing the story. Hats off to Bill for keeping us from all running Display Writer for fifteen years!!] Cough... this is a story about Booting. Anyway, you need some kind of DOS. Snag a floppy boot image of FreeDOS here. Create the diskette:
bash-2.05a# cat BTFDOSB7.IMG > /dev/fd0
bash-2.05a# mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /mnt
bash-2.05a# ls /mnt
autoexec.bat config.sys fdkernel.lsm kernel.sys readme
command.com copying.txt fdos kernel16.sys
bash-2.05a#
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Copy your kernel, loadlin.exe, and edit a linux.bat:
bash-2.05a# cp loadlin.exe /mnt
bash-2.05a# cp vmlinuz /mnt
bash-2.05a# cat /mnt/linux.bat
loadlin vmlinuz root=/dev/sda3 ro vga=3
bash-2.05a# ls /mnt
autoexec.bat copying.txt kernel.sys loadlin.exe
command.com fdkernel.lsm kernel16.sys readme
config.sys fdos linux.bat vmlinuz
bash-2.05a#
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Modify linux.bat for the location of your root partition. This also assumes that your kernel has the correct drivers built in. Loadlin does have options for an initrd file if you need it. There are also some utilities included with FreeDOS:
bash-2.05a# ls /mnt/fdos
Xkeyb.txt fdiskhlp.txt ldxkeyb.bat te.exe
attrib.com fdiskpt.ini listxdef.exe xkeyb.exe
choice.exe format.exe more.exe xkeybres.exe
drvmngr.exe keyb.bat scankbd.exe
fdisk.exe keydefs sys.com
fdisk.ini keyman.exe te.doc
bash-2.05a#
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One cool utility is te, an editor quite similar to the Borland C++ 3.1 IDE. Another cool thing is that the FreeDOS fdisk sees Linux partitions correctly. Might be useful in a pinch. To boot your system using the above diskette, just boot and type linux. Create a floppy like this for every system!! For an alternate approach, see our SysLinux article.
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