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From: archer%segin4.segin.fr@relay.prime.com (Vincent Archer)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Shoelace... PC only?
Message-ID: <41321@nigel.ee.udel.edu>
Date: 10 Jan 91 09:13:05 GMT
Sender: mmdf@ee.udel.edu
Lines: 37

Bert Laverman <laverman@cs.rug.nl> said:
[about shoelace being portable]
>   It seems like a wunderfull package to be able to run. Atari harddisks
> have partition tables and can be bootable in much the same fashion as
> are PC/XT/AT disks. (Haven't heard of anyone ever booting his/her hardisk
> on anything else than TOS, but I'm removing TOS from it, so I would
> like to try)

There was such a package for ST. The stpart program from Steve Kirkendall
(kirkenda@cs.pdx.edu) contains code to make an atari HD bootable directly
under Minix. There's still a problem with your autoboot HD (once that cannot
be bypassed, sigh :-), and it's that you can NEVER use TOS with your HD again,
even if you try to boot from the HD utility disk...

> Currently I have to switch to TOS if I want to park my disk... :-(

That's why I still have a bootable TOS. Once minix-st support minor device 15
(that was one reserved for disk park, if I remember the my patch .2 or .3
correctly), there will be no reason to support my small 1Mo partition...

>   Like you mention in the Shoelace docs, booting from floppies is cumbersome.
> There exists a program called MINIX.PRG, to start from TOS, but using it
> damages the reboot vectors, so the only way to stop Minix is by switching
> off the power :-(.

I haven't been able to even boot Minix using the .PRG booter. :-(

> Summarizing; If it can be done with PC's, why not with ST's?

Everything that PCs can do, 68000s can do better! :-)

	Vincent Archer
	Email: archer%segin4.segin.fr@relay.prime.com

Thou shalt run lint frequently and study its pronouncements with care, for
verily its perception and judgement oft exceed thine.
  -- 1st commandment for C programmers