Re: [iPAQ] "Dual Boot"

* Dirk van Hennekeler (hennekel@ozy.dec.com) [001005 06:36]:
> I'm not sure how it would be booted from a cf card - that is unfamiliar
> territory. At a guess from past posts to this list, the bootldr
> would have to be modified to be able to read from the cf card. Once that
> is done I guess it would be like booting Linux from a disk.
>
> I like your idea.
> You are not alone with this thought, some others on this list
> have also suggested this.

This is welly. I've decided to ditch my current direction (basically copying
the current bootldr and trying to execute it from there), and move into a
direction the MIPS Vr people have done.

What they do is compile the kernel as an ELF executable with the kernel and
ramdisk as a payload. Then they just have a small ELF loader that loads and
runs. This is also how NetBSD seems to do it.

The nice thing about this method is that it *seems* to be portable and
is a lot easier to get to work (basically, load, turn off MMU, and go...the Vr
series patch the interrupt vector with a branch inst to start booting the
kernel.)

I'm going to try this after I get WinCE back onto my iPAQ. Get in touch if you
would like to know more/help.

Thanks,
Mark Crichton