Re: Fwd: How do I instal Dragonfly BSD from a hard drive - rather than CD?

[Bill Hacker <wbh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hiten Pandya wrote:

> Emiel Kollof wrote:
>
> > Hi guys,
> >
> > Forwarded to the users list (The forwarded post is below) and also a 
> > reply to this guy. I know it's a troll, but I thought it was way too 
> > funny for you guys to miss. It nearly made me choke on my morning 
> > coffee. This guy owes me a new keyboard because coffee | nose > keyboard.
> >
> > Heck for this reason alone I'll bite ;)
> >
> > Hi Pete.
> >
> > DragonFly can infact be installed from a harddrive. If you searched 
> > the archives of the mailing list, you see that it's possible. oh, and 
> > why use a harddrive? You can also install via PXE and netboot, just as 
> > easy. (well, not really as easy, but it's definately not rocket science).
> >
> > As for your bootable CD argument, well, that's why they invented CD 
> > rewritables. You know, those things you can erase and rewrite.
> > Installing in windows is not possible, was never possible, and will 
> > never be possible. DragonFly is not a windows application. It's a full 
> > blown operating system that wants absolute control over your hardware. 
> > It's way easy to just dedicate a partition for DragonFly and just boot 
> > from network/cd and install.
>
>
> I don't know about not possible, it can be made possible.  I have achieved
> parts of such an endevour but never continued with it.  But while we are
> on the subject of possibilities, it would be possible to:
>
> (o) offer a Windows application that walks a person through creating a
> specification file for installing dragonfly, during next boot, the whole
> shebam.  The file can then be fed to BSDInstaller, and everything would
> just work like an automated install.  The idea is no different from how
> Windows uses answer files, except you are pretty much locked into using
> floppy disks when it comes to Windows.
>
> (o) install dragonfly onto a second empty partition from Windows, one of
> the key parts would be being able to extract information from ISO files. 
> User downloads an ISO file from dragonflybsd.org along with the "Install 
> Application", specifies path to ISO file, other config info, etc.
>
> I am sure it would attract people to our operating system, no doubt; but I
> don't consider writing such an application a priority.  It's in my horizon
> of things to do when I get free time.
>
> Anyway, the guy who is flaming us is not really articulate otherwise he
> might just be heard by the right people. :)
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Hiten Pandya
> hmp at dragonflybsd.org

Hiten, you are onto something here:

- Thinking back to when a 'reboot' was not a complete system re-init, 
i.e. preserving JRAM under DOS 'reboot'...

How about a downloadable dumb-but-universal script that would run under 
anything from CP/M or DOS onward, collect the necessary settings, be 
made aware of where DragonFly could be found (network, CD, HDD), where 
it was to be installed, preserve all these settings in RAM, then jump to 
a routine that shed the host OS and brought itself into life to complete 
the install.

- all without any 'writable' local storage other than RAM.

- Q&A in text.  Look and feel much like the MB BIOS or SCSI RAID 
controller UI or /stand/sysinstall. 'Pretty' GUI not needed.

A machine-code or Forth routine to handle all this could reside entirely 
in CPU cache.... family resemblance to MBR + the legacy Forth boot 
loader with 'extras', but from RAM, not external media.

Bill