Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!nosc!ucsd!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hpda!hpcupt1!hpisoa1!vandys
From: vandys@hpisoa1.HP.COM (Andrew Valencia)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: MINIX and harddisk
Message-ID: <3490003@hpisoa1.HP.COM>
Date: 8 Sep 88 18:53:08 GMT
References: <285@mjbtn.MFEE.TN.US>
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
Lines: 15

/ hpisoa1:comp.os.minix / hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick) / 10:38 pm  Sep  7, 1988 /
>At least in 1.3 (I don't know 1.2) you can put all but the boot floppy
>on hard disk.

    Even 1.1 can be made to do this with little trouble.  The major/minor
numbers are encoded in the constants ROOTDEV and BOOTDEV (if memory serves)
in the h/ directory.  Changing ROOTDEV to the hard disk partition, and
chopping out the floppy-to-rootdev copy results in a very nice root partition
on hard disk, with a much faster boot.

    Putting even the boot floppy on hard disk is possible; the diffs went
by a couple of months ago--all it required was some changes to bootblok.s.
Please don't ask me for them; I haven't done this myself (I change kernels
too often!)

					Andy