Creating a bootable floppy

[Greg Ward]

I want to create a bootable floppy with both GRUB and my kernel.  (I'm
running GRUB 0.5.96.1 on what started out as a Progeny Debian 1.0
system, but is getting progressively closer to Debian "testing", with
Linux 2.4.2.)

I must be missing something obvious, but the GRUB info document just
says to dd the stage 1 and stage2 files onto the floppy -- nothing about
putting a kernel there.  I want a boot floppy that 1) is completely
independent of my hard drive, and 2) allows me to select my root device
at boot time.  (The idea is that with one boot floppy, I'll be able to
boot my hard disk if all I screw up is the MBR or boot sector, or a
rescue ZIP disk if my hard disk is toast, or a rescue floppy if not even
the ZIP drive is available.)

I know how I would do this with LILO: put a filesystem on the floppy,
copy the kernel into that FS, and install a LILO boot sector on the
floppy that points at the kernel on the floppy.  Then at boot time I'd
have to type in one of "root=/dev/sda5" (hard disk), "root=/dev/sdb4"
(rescue ZIP disk), or "root=/dev/fd0" (rescue floppy).

But it would be so much nicer to do it with GRUB -- pretty little menu,
no typing kernel options, etc.  But I can't penetrate the GRUB
documentation; it's just not clear to me how to create a floppy with
GRUB's boot-loader, GRUB menus, and a kernel.

Thanks --

        Greg

PS. please cc me just to be sure -- I've subscribed to the list, but my
subscription has't gone through yet.

-- 
Greg Ward - programmer-at-large                         address@hidden
http://starship.python.net/~gward/
This quote intentionally left blank.