Re: 286 & Linux
H. Peter Anvin (hpa@transmeta.com)
30 Oct 1998 02:34:39 GMT
Followup to: <Pine.LNX.3.95.981029210216.355A-100000@chaos.analogic.com>
By author: "Richard B. Johnson" <root@chaos.analogic.com>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> On Thu, 29 Oct 1998, LJP wrote:
>
> > Anybody know if the kernel will boot up on an old 286 with a 486 upgrade?
> >
>
> Take your favorite kernel (zImage of bzImage) and copy it to a raw
> floppy.
>
> cp /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /dev/fd0
>
> Then try to boot your machine with it. It probably won't find any of
> the devices, etc., certainly won't be able to mount the root file-
> system, but if it comes up with some initialization stuff before
> it panics trying to mount a non-existant fs, then it works!
>
> If it says uncompressing linux and that's all... then it doesn't.
> I take such a floppy to Computer Shows to see how machines work with
> Linux. You can even see the BogoMIPS to help decide if it's worth
> the effort to continue. Just a motherboard, floppy, and screen-card
> will tell a lot.
>
Why not bring a floppy with a loaded initrd so you actually can get a
shell prompt and do a couple of operations?
-hpa
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