Subject: bootable root disk with networking available
From: [email-masked] (Jon Tombs)
Date: Mon, 5 Jul 93 02:33:13 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce

I have made available a bootable 3 1/2" floppy disk image for trying linux
on any networked 386/486 PC (with a 3 1/2" A: drive and supported ethernet
card)

***As with all network software get permission of your local network or
system admin before attempting to use this image and make sure you know the
correct network address for your machine***

The image is avaiable from ftp.robots in /pub/linux/ox-usr/rootdisk, here is
part of the README please read the complete file if you are going to try the
disk.

8<--------README.SHORT--------

INSTALLATION:
------------
You can copy the image onto a floppy from most unix/linux machines with:
gunzip < linux-pl10a.gz | dd of=/dev/fd0 bs=18k

Under msdog you will need to gunzip (with gzip.exe -d) the image then copy
it to a floppy with rawrite.exe.

LIMITATIONS:
-----------

The image will only fit on a 3.5" drive, so you must have a 3.5" drive as A:

Booting is slow, the disk got pretty fragmented in setting up and I didn't
use the lilo fast read options which don't work on all machines.

The bootable root disk only has ide, nfs, minix, ext2, mouse and math emu.

If you want to have SCSI or XT disk support, you will need to use the scsi
boot image and then insert the bootable root disk at the prompt. (i.e. back
to the old boot and root disk system). 

There is no support for SLIP - I don't have access to any SLIP servers.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:
----------------------
You need to know the following information before you can successfully use 
this boot image - make sure you know the configuration answers before 
attempting to boot!

1) Permission of your local netadmin.
2) Your PCs host name.
3) The IP address of your PC.
4) The IP address of the gateway/default router out of your network.
5) The netmask for your network

If you are outside Oxford you also need:
6) The IP address of your local named server.
7) a /usr partition that you can mount which contains the networking daemons
in /usr/etc and user binaries in /usr/bin

If you are not on a B or C class network the you will also need to know:
8) Your broadcast address
9) The net address for your network - what default packets for your local 
ethernet are routed to.

BOOTING:
-------
Supported cards are
The Novell NE-2000
The 3c503 EtherLink II
WD80x3 Western Digital (SMC) WD80x3. *#!

If you don't have one of these you are on your own.

*#! WD80x3 cards must have the shared ram address at 0x4E000 for them to work!
Use wdsetup under linux or ezsetup under dos to set this up.

Alternatively if the auto configure doesn't work you can stop the boot at the
lilo prompt and give the ethernet card options there as
ether=IRQ,IOADDR,SHMEMSTART,SHMEMEND,IS8BIT,eth0 

e.g.
LILO linux ether=10,0x300,0x4E000,0x52000,1,eth0

Jon. <[email-masked]>

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