openadk/package/aboot/src/sdisklabel/README

These are sources and binaries for a Linux/Alpha boot file installer
and disk partitioner. They're horrible, and should be destroyed.
We're going to assume you don't have OSF/1, but want to use your hard
drive. If you have OSF/1, what are you doing in here??!?!?!!?

The program also assumes you have a SCSI disk with 512-byte sectors,
tho it should work fine on an IDE drive as well.  All sizes are
specified on the command line in sectors.

There are 8 partitions in total, and are numbered from 0 to 7.
Partitions have to be added sequentially, as this program won't let
you leave empty partitions unlike many BSD disklabel programs.

First off, if you have an invalid disk label (you've never run this
program before) you get to do

	sdisklabel /dev/sda zero

(/dev/sda is the device you're partitioning, substitute as
appropriate).

This zeros out your disk label. Only do this if you really want to
zero your disk label. It just does it; it doesn't ask, or warn, or
anything.

The program also probably printed out the size of your disk in K. If
it was wrong, you now get to use the "size xxx" option along with the
rest of these commands. The size isn't critical, it's just used to try
and make sure you don't go past the end of the disk.

Next, add your first partition. This *doesn't* start from 0, as you
have to leave room for the boot loader and other stuff. 256K (or 512
sectors) will be enough.

Let's pretend that you want to make a 250000K partition starting
from sector offset 512:

	sdisklabel /dev/sda 0 512 500000 8 print

The last number is the filesystem type, and is currently 8 for ext2fs
filesystems. (A different number would be used to specify an OSF/1
partition, for example).

If all was successful, the program should print out the partition (the
last keyword, "print", specifies that it should print the partition
after modifying it with the previous command), and you should see
something like
----------------------------------------------------------------
I think your disk is 528870K total size.
If I'm wrong, override the size with the 'size num' option

partition 0: type 8, starts sector 512, size 500000
----------------------------------------------------------------

We can then add the next partition, which would be partition 1.
To add a second partition that is 200000K long, we'd run
	sdisklabel /dev/sda 1 512256 400000 8 print
And both partitions would then be printed out.

If for some reason the size got determined incorrectly, we'd do
instead

	sdisklabel /dev/sda size 528870 0 512 400000 8 print

The size option should come immediately after the device name, and the
size is the total # of sectors on the drive.

That wasn't too bad, was it? The program doesn't do enough error
checking, but it should work OK if you don't try to abuse it.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Adding a bootstrap to the HD

This isn't exactly trivial, and should be done immediately after
setting up the partitions (but not before...). I can't be held
responsible if the bootstrap writer wipes your drive-it does hardly
any error checking, tho it tries to make sure that you're not going to
wipe out any partitions before it starts writing.

The program basically writes a raw binary image (*not* an a.out format file)
to the disk starting from sector 2. This can be generated from an executable
by using the arch/alpha/linux/tools/build program found in the kernel
distribution, or the similar program in the aboot distributiion. So to
install the bootloader in bootlx, assuming you've partitioned your disk (and
left enough blank space between the start of the disk and the first
partition to hold the bootloader):

	swriteboot /dev/sda bootlx

When using aboot, you can also append a kernel image by using
        
        swriteboot /dev/sda bootlx vmlinux.gz

If you invoke swriteboot with the '-v' option, it will be a bit more
verbose.

If you have to partition your disk with a program that does not allow to
leave a blank (unpartitiones) space at the beginning for the bootloader,
create a partition of the desired size instead. swriteboot will complain
that the desired boot area overlaps with that partition, so you must use

        swriteboot -f# ...

where # is the partition number to force overwriting this area.