From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: tlaronde@polynum.com Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 03:04:01 +0200 To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@cse.psu.edu> Subject: Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on a USB flash drive Message-ID: <20070710010401.GA879@polynum.com> References: <38ee74ff8c5e115f5b233c1e5d5f8cc3@csplan9.rit.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <38ee74ff8c5e115f5b233c1e5d5f8cc3@csplan9.rit.edu> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.3i Topicbox-Message-UUID: 9409c33c-ead2-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 Hello, On Mon, Jul 09, 2007 at 11:38:39AM -1000, john@csplan9.rit.edu wrote: > > Has anybody tried booting Plan 9 from a USB flash drive? > It seems like an ideal way to have a portable terminal. I'd like > to try it, but I have no idea what might need to be done to > make it boot. The problem is the one encountered [and related in some recent threads] by people using CDROM over USB or stick on USB. The PBS2 uses BIOS services to load 9load---i.e. if the BIOS can boot the device, 9load is loaded---but 9load by itself doesn't use the BIOS services, switches to protected mode and drives directly the hardware being then limited to the one it is compiled with support for. The best solution is indeed the one indicated in Russ Cox' note: implement vm86 and use a vanilla kernel (I made some development with GRUB some [long] years ago and in fact, a "sophisticated" boot loader is definitively not needed since one ends developing just another kernel; so a simple boot selector and a kernel is the best solution [plus clean code to allow generating EPROM from the kernel sources for netboot perhaps]). The note: http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Replacing_9load/index.html (there is even an alternative solution given with the code in /n/sources/contrib/rsc/load). -- Thierry Laronde (Alceste) http://www.kergis.com/ Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C