From d1e063beb43e595680c65e3804d1f8ddff53373b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Guido Guenther Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 23:48:07 +0100 Subject: Imported Debian version 0.3.8.8 --- README | 53 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 53 insertions(+) create mode 100644 README (limited to 'README') diff --git a/README b/README new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4128fc1 --- /dev/null +++ b/README @@ -0,0 +1,53 @@ +Arcboot is the bootloader used on SGI IP22 machines (Indy and Indigo2) and +the SGI IP32 (O2) to boot Linux from an Ext{2,3}-filesystem. + +To install arcboot type: + +"/usr/sbin/arcboot " as root. + +where is the disk on which arcboot will be installed. To let +this work the disk *must* have an SGI disklabel. Afterwards copy arcboot.conf +into /etc/ and adjust it to your needs. + +Arcboot parses the PROM variable OSLoadPartition to find arcboot.conf therefore +/etc/ has to be on the same partition as the kernel. +It boots the label given in OSLoadFilename or on the command line (see below). + +If it can't fine the label in arcboot.conf it tries to boot the file +OSLoadPartition/OSLoadFilename, allowing you to boot any file on an ext2 +filesystem by adjusting OSLoadPartition accordingly (this might be helpful if +your freshly installed kernel doesn't boot). + +Besides the append="..." line in /etc/arcboot.conf arcboot also appends the +value of the prom variable OSLoadOptions to the kernel's command line. This +allows you to override the arcboot.conf's kernel command line. + +If you enter the prom and boot via the "boot" command you can pass additional +parameters to the kernel. E.g.: + +boot linux single console=ttyS0 root=/dev/sda2 + +will boot the label "linux" from arcboot.conf and append to additional +arguments given above. Or + +boot /boot/vmlinux single console=ttyS0 root=/dev/sda2 + +will boot the file with the absolute path OSLoadPartition/boot/vmlinux with the +same arguments as above. Note that OSLoadPartition must be an partition name +as understood by ARCS (like scsi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(0)). + +Note: arcboot can only load ELF kernels. ECOFF is (and will not be) supported. + +For tftpbooting please refer to the tip22 package. + +Acknowledgements: + - arcboot is based on the arc-bootloader for SGI visual workstations written + by Ralf Baechle + - the e2fslib dir is basically a stripped down verion of e2fsprogs 1.25 as + found on http://sourceforge.net/projects/e2fsprogs and written by Theodore + T'so compiled with -nopic. + - most of the config file parsing is borrowed from delo by Florian Lohoff + . Additional thanks to him for a weekend of input, testing + & patches. + + -- Guido Guenther , Sun, 26 Apr 2003 20:29:43 +0100 -- cgit v1.2.3