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Diffstat (limited to 'doc/genisoimage/README.mipselboot')
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diff --git a/doc/genisoimage/README.mipselboot b/doc/genisoimage/README.mipselboot new file mode 100644 index 0000000..af3979b --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/genisoimage/README.mipselboot @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +# README.mipselboot Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com> 2004/07/19 + +The mips/DEC boot support allows you to create a bootable CD which +will work with little-endian mips DEC machines (e.g. older +DECstations), for example bootable installation media. + +The method used for this is the same as in delo, the Linux-on-mipsel +bootloader. See the delo README for more information about how to +configure the DECstation's firmware to find and boot the CDROM. + +The DEC firmware reads the first 512-byte "sector" off a disk and +parses information from that sector. The information in question is +the location (start sector) and length of the first stage boot +loader. + +(On Linux, this boot loader is in ELF format and the firmware does not +know how to deal with ELF directly, we have to parse the ELF headers +and find the raw binary data needed inside it. Pointers to the start +and length of that raw binary are what is stored in the boot sector.) + +The firmware will load and execute the first stage boot loader, and +from that point the system should be able to find the normal OS kernel +and start up fully. + +To use the DEC boot support code in genisoimage, simply specify the kernel +file location (relative to the CD root) as follows: + +genisoimage ... -mipsel-boot <kernel file> -o mipsel.iso mipsel-files + |