Installing the Hurd without preinstalling Linux
Hello,
It would be nice to have some instructions on installing the Hurd
on a non-Linux box, without having to preinstall Linux at all!
I don't want to have to install any flavor of Linux just to be able to
mkfs an ext2fs filesystem on a free partition. I don't have that much
free space to burn, at least not for an additional Linux partition,
which I don't have any use for!
Even at this early stage of development, we should strive to make the
Hurd as free as possible from other OS (well, at least for
bootstrapping!). The installation procedure should be at least self
contained and independent of any other OS. The only reasonable
requirement should be a free partition (and even here, I'm not sure
if that is really necessary!).
One possible workaround would be to create _and provide_ a bare-bones
Linux bootdisk together with a root-fs floppy which should contain
at least a usable mke2fs as well as fdisk. Maybe some kind of Linux
fixit floppy? Which set of disks would you recommend for this (with URLs)?
[Sorry for this dumb question, but I moved away from Linux to FreeBSD
a long while ago, since I was not happy with the way most Linux distribs
where (dis)organized...]
A much better alternative will be of course a native grub/gnumach/root-fs
bootdisk set, but that requires more work for now. Was not Marcus working
on it? If fdisk were all that is missing, what's exactly the problem?
Thank you for your help.
-Farid.
--
Farid Hajji -- Unix Systems and Network Administrator | Phone: +49-2131-67-555
Broicherdorfstr. 83, D-41564 Kaarst, Germany | farid.hajji@ob.kamp.net
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