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Re: Booting Linux using AHA2940UW (no IDE), with aic7xxx as modu



On Sun, 29 Nov 1998 03:32:17 +0200 (IST), Evgeny Stambulchik
<fnevgeny@plasma-gate.weizmann.ac.il> wrote:

>On 28-Nov-98 Meir Litmanovich wrote:
>
>>  You can use RAMDISK for booting and then fire up kernel with
>>  SCSI as module.
>
>I'm not sure it's possible without the time machine :). In the real life, the
>order is slightly different: first you load a kernel and then, you can create a
>RAM disk. Or, do you, by "fire up kernel", mean loading the SCSI driver module?
>Then anyway, how is the module going to jump onto the RAM disk?
This was my original question, if you will look at my original post.

The kernel is loaded by LILO by using the BIOS INT13H routines, and this is
why LILO can boot off a SCSI HD (because the SCSI BIOS provides BIOS INT13H
support in ROM).
After the kernel is loaded in memory, it is run.
Now the question is - who loads the ramdisk? Is it also loaded by LILO using
the BIOS, placing it in memory, ready to be used by the kernel when it starts
running, or is it loaded by the kernel, requiring a device driver to access
the device where the ramdisk is stored?

At the moment, the discussion has became purely academic, as my own problem
was solved (I've recompiled the kernel), but I'm still interested to know
whether what I have tried was possible or not.

>Evgeny

Udi