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Re: Multi Booting
This seems to be a very common question that everyone has! Oh well.... I
have found that in using OSKIT that zImages can be used by using the
mklinuximage program.
Alot of the problems that come from zImages is a lack of knowledge of the
Linux kernel itself. First things first: zImages can only be as big as
640kb (or so) otherwise they will NOT work. In Linux once their monolithic
kernel reached larger sizes they added modules and the bzImage which allowed
for dynamic linking of the kernel and larger kernel images. Oskit to my
knowledge does not allow you to create bzImage kernels. The best solution
is one of the following: modularize your kernel and put as much of your
code into user space programs... it makes for a technically better os &
makes for smaller kernels, the alternative is to use another image type. I
personally suggest that you use multiboot compliant images (i.e. DON'T use
mklinuximage) which means that you just link the kernel with the multiboot.o
file and use that.... after compilation of the kernel image use a bootloader
such as GRUB.
GRUB (GRand Unified Bootloader) will boot msdos/windows, linux, XXXXBSD
(where XXXX is net, free, open), GNU Hurd, and Mach kernels. I use it is my
default bootloader, and have been able to boot a 3mb kernel with it.
You can obtain a floppy image file of the bootloader/ installation files at
this site:
ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/grub/
The files with this ending:
"-i386-pc.ext2fs"
can be written directly to floppy disks with the dd command.
To boot your kernel edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file on the floppy...
here's an example if it helps (remember to count from 0):
timeout 5
default 0
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/multiboot/kernelfile parameter1 parameter2
I hope that this helps you!
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