Linux/Alpha understands both fdisk-style and disklabel-style partition
tables.
> caffrey> I then took the disk to my jensen and tried the line from the
> caffrey> INSTALL_GUIDE for BLADE0.2 typing at the SRM console.
> caffrey>
> caffrey> >>> boot -fl "root=/dev/fd0 ramdisk=1440" dka600
> caffrey>
> caffrey> where my "boot disk" is dka600.
> caffrey>
> caffrey> the response was invalid command.
> caffrey> upon farther investigation it seems that I can only pass a single
> caffrey> parameter to the boot flags. SO
> caffrey>
> caffrey> >>> boot -fl "root=/dev/fd0" dka600
> caffrey>
> caffrey> WORKS but ties up my floppy drive with the root disk HELP!!!
> Yes, SRM console can only pass ONE parameter, and limits
> until 16 chars.
Notice that different SRM consoles vary in this respect. For example,
the Noname SRM console can accept pretty much any number of arguments
(there surely are some limits, but I tried very long option strings
and they worked fine).
I think the solution for the SRM consoles is to change the secondary
bootstrap loader to prompt for a command line string. For example,
>>> boot -fl i dka600
could be interpreted by the secondary bootstrap loader to prompt for
an option line. This is pretty much guaranteed to work on any system
because OSF/1 uses similar one-character options.
The real question is of course how to avoid having to type these
options each time you boot. I think it would be reasonable to
reserve, say, one sector on the disk to hold default options that
are used if nothing else is specified.
I meant to implement this in aboot for quite some time but as I don't
have a Jensen, there is little incentive to do so and there always
have been more pressing things to do. But if somebody wanted to take
a shot at it, feel free to ask me anything you might want to know
about aboot/SRM---implementing this should be straight forward.
--david