How to Build A TAMU Style Boot Diskette:

The TAMU boot diskette has two major parts, the kernel and the ramdisk.
The kernel part is a standard Linux "Image" file, but compiled to include
the ramdisk startup, and padded to occupy the first 512K of the diskette.
The ramdisk is a linux root filesystem image that occupies the remaining
688K of the diskette (totalling 1200 K, thus fitting in either a 5.25
or 3.5 inch diskette).  

The following detailed instructions show how to make the kernel and
ramdisk images either by extracting them from the existing TAMU.99p4
"boot" diskette, or from scratch, and then how to combine them back
into a new boot diskette.

To make the padded kernel image (from the TAMU boot disk):
1. mkdir /usr/src/install
2. cd /usr/src/install
3. insert the TAMU.99p4 "boot" diskette
4. dd bs=1k count=512 if=/dev/fd0 of=kernel.688

To make the padded kernel image from scratch:
1. cd /usr/src/linux
2. edit Makefile, to uncomment the RAMDISK line, and set its size to 688
3. make config
4. make dep
5. make Image
6. mkdir ../install
7. cat Image /dev/zero |dd bs=1k count=512 conv=sync of=../install/kernel.688
8. rm Image
9. make clean
10. edit the Makefile to comment the ramdisk back out (before you forget :-)

To make the ramdisk image (based on the TAMU boot disk):
1. cd /usr/src/install
2. insert the TAMU.99p4 boot diskette
3. dd bs=1k skip=512 count=688 if=/dev/fd0 of=ramdisk.688
4. insert a formatted scratch diskette
5. cat ramdisk.688 >/dev/fd0
6. mount /dev/fd0 /mnt
7. edit the ramdisk on /mnt as desired.
8. umount /mnt
9. dd bs=1k count=688 if=/dev/fd0 of=ramdisk.688

To make a ramdisk image from scratch:
1. cd /usr/src/install
2. insert a formatted scratch diskette
3. mkfs /dev/fd0 688
4. mount /dev/fd0 /mnt
5. edit the ramdisk on /mnt as desired.
6. umount /mnt
7. dd bs=1k count=688 if=/dev/fd0 of=ramdisk.688


To build the new boot diskette:
1. insert a formatted floppy
2. cd /usr/src/install
3. cat kernel.688 ramdisk.688 >/dev/fd0

That's it.

Notes:

If 5.25" diskette compatibility is not important, the ramdisk can be up
to 928K (1440 - 512) -- simply change all references in the instructions 
from "688" to "928".

The TAMU ramdisk uses a "lite" version of the standard library, which
appears to be some 600K bytes in size to an "ls", but in fact uses much 
less space, due to holes in the file.  Lite libs with holes CANNOT be
transferred with tar, as tar fills in the holes, but instead must be
transferred directly with cp, as GNU cp preserves the holes.  To tell
how full the ramdisk is, use df to report the number of free blocks
while the ramdisk is mounted on /mnt.

questions to
dave.safford@sc.tamu.edu