xref: /netbsd-src/share/man/man8/man8.amiga/installboot.8 (revision 2a399c6883d870daece976daec6ffa7bb7f934ce)
1.\"	$NetBSD: installboot.8,v 1.6 1997/11/24 06:29:20 lukem Exp $
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3.\" Copyright (c) 1995 Paul Kranenburg
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31.Dd November 29, 1996
32.Dt INSTALLBOOT 8
33.Os
34.Sh NAME
35.Nm installboot
36.Nd install a bootstrap on an FFS filesystem partition
37.Sh SYNOPSIS
38.Nm installboot
39.Ar bootblock
40.Ar device
41.Sh DESCRIPTION
42.Nm installboot
43copies the bootblock to a bootable partition. The
44bootstrap is written into the bootblock area on the partition, right
45in front of the superblock, and hence limited in size to
468192 bytes.
47.Pp
48The bootstrap resides in the first few blocks on the partition
49.Pq as specified by Commodore-Amiga Inc.
50The bootstrap is loaded into memory by the ROM from bootable devices:
51RDB devices, where the partition is marked as bootable, or (not on the
52DraCo) floppy disks in Amiga format (880K/1760k).
53.Pp
54In the presence of more than one bootable partition/floppy disk, the partition
55is chosen by the bootpriority (from the RDB), which can be overridden by
56the operator from the boot menu (on Amiga machines, hold down the outer
57mouse buttons during boot; on DraCo machines, press the left mouse button
58when prompted).
59.Pp
60On RDB devices, the whole bootblock is loaded by the ROM. The number of
61boot blocks in the RDB partition entry must be correct.
62.Pp
63On floppy disks, the ROM always loads the first two blocks (1024 bytes),
64and the bootblock allocates memory and loads the whole bootblock on startup.
65.Pp
66After receiving control, the bootblock uses the stand-alone
67filesystem code in
68.Dq libsa.a
69to load the kernel from the filesystem on the partition it was started from.
70The code for the boot program can be found in
71.Pa /usr/mdec/fdboot
72.Pq floppy disk code
73or
74.Pa /usr/mdec/xxboot
75.Pq generic RDB disk code .
76.Pp
77The arguments are:
78.Bl -tag -width bootblock
79.It Ar bootblock
80The file containing the bootblock (normally /usr/mdec/xxboot for RDB devices).
81.It Ar device
82The name of the character special device specifying the partition on which the
83bootstrap is to be installed.
84.El
85.Sh EXAMPLES
86The following command will install the
87boot program in the bootblock area on
88.Dq sd0a :
89.Bd -literal -offset indent
90installboot /usr/mdec/xxboot /dev/rsd0a
91.Ed
92.Sh CAVEATS
93If
94.Nm
95is accidentally used on the whole disk partition, the RDB will be overwritten,
96making your system unusable after the next reboot.
97.Pp
98Some third-party accellerator boards are not auto-configuring. You won't
99be able to use their memory when booting from the bootblock after a cold
100start.
101.Pp
102Some third-party disk controllers don't support bootblock booting.
103.Pp
104DraCo ROMs don't support bootblock booting from floppy disks.
105.Pp
106Most 68060 boards, unlike the DraCo, don't set the SysBase->AttnFlags
107bit for the 68060 CPU (a patch program which is called during
108AmigaOS startup does this). Currently,
109.Nx
110is not able to detect this condition, and will fail.
111.Sh BUGS
112There is currently no easy way to edit the RDB from within
113.Tn NetBSD. Therefore, you have to use HDTOOLBOX or a similar tool to
114set the partition to bootable, "use custom bootblocks" and the number
115of bootblocks to 16 (for xxboot) or 2 (for fdboot), at least the first
116time you install the bootblock.
117.Pp
118As normal dd is used to install the bootblock, you can only install onto
119your currently used root (or any other mounted) partition from single-user
120mode, or while otherwise running in insecure mode.
121.Sh "SEE ALSO"
122.Xr dd 1 ,
123.Xr boot 8
124.Sh HISTORY
125The
126.Nm
127command first appeared in
128.Nx 1.3
129