2 DSN_N Boot Questions

Forum: DSL-N
Topic: 2 DSN_N Boot Questions
started by: Trapper

Posted by Trapper on Jan. 11 2008,14:42

Edit ....(Sorry about the topic name error. Should be: 2 DSL-N Boot questions)

DSL-N 01RC4

I am having difficulty booting DSL-N on an usb drive and have a couple of questions.

Can I assume that the "fromusb" cheatcode is not available in DSL-N? My usb drive is not detected at boot (slow to register). With DSL I simply use "DSL fromusb" at the bootscreen when booting from cdrom or floppy as a workaround that works fine. That doesn't seem to work with DSL-N. Consequently, I am unable to use DSL-N from my usb drive.

Also, I note there are bootfloppy1 & 2 images in the DSL-N directory at the download sites. I downloaded and did an image burn to floppies but couldn't get either to boot. What are these bootfloppy images for and how do I use them?

Posted by Juanito on Jan. 11 2008,14:47

I'm using dsl-n from a usb stick without problems on a direct boot (i.e. not floppy fromusb).

If I remember correctly, you need to format one of the dsl-n boot floppies 1.7MB(2MB?) since the startup files are too big for the standard 1.44MB or something like that.

Posted by curaga on Jan. 11 2008,17:02

Try "waitusb"

Posted by Trapper on Jan. 12 2008,02:25

Correct curaga ... waitusb works and enables me to boot from the usb drive. I did a lot of searching prior to asking. Perhaps there's some documentation or additional cheat codes somewhere that I am not aware of.

As for the floppy image, I suspected the floppy size was the problem because of the size of the image, Juanito. Seeing that DSL-N has the floppy tool with an option to format 1722 MB disks, I tried that. All I could get is an access prohibited message. Maybe I need root privilege to use the floppy tool? How do I do that in DSL-N?

I did manage to access the floppy via root with the superformat tool, however it apparently does not complete the format properly because it cannot find mformat. Seems to do the low format portion okay but not the msdos filesystem portion.

I tried doing the task in Fedora and it has neither superformat or mformat available and they are not available in their repositories either. Perhaps they are tools in a package?

Posted by curaga on Jan. 12 2008,13:26

fdformat can do 1.7MB floppies too, if you have their data in /etc/fdprm.

All drives do not support higher-density floppies, so it could also be your floppy drive. If so, you can edit the floppy image (delete drivers you don't need) and see if it fits a 1.44MB floppy after that.