Re: Parted w/o boot disk

[Glenn McGrath]

Andrew Clausen wrote:
> 
> Glenn McGrath wrote:
> > Im sure you know loopback devices....
> 
> He's using loadlin.  It uses initial ram disks.
> 
> > dd if=/dev/zero of=./loopy bs=1k count=2000
> > mkfs.ext2 ./loopy
> > mount -t ext2 ./loopy /mnt
> >
> > If you patch the linux kernel you can load the root fs can be from a
> > loop filesystem.
> 
> I think this is irrelevant for this problem... although it could
> save a bit of RAM.  Maybe we should do it, and encourage all
> rescue disk people to do it...
> 
> Andrew Clausen

The only thing is the loop image isnt compressed which is why its not
used for rescue disks.

I was thinking more generally than just this case. 

If there was a nice graphical frontend (x would be overkill for this
situation) it would be too big for a rescue floppy, but it could go in a
loop file under a windows filesystem.

So windows users could install the parted rescue image and it could even
place a nice parted icon on there desktop that starts loadlin.

Then if windows users want to resize their hard disk they can just click
the icon it boots linux presents them with a parted gui and then prompts
them to reboot when tthey are finished (just like windows always does).

This way we could get to windows users by stealth, they wouldnt even
need to know it was linux underneath.


Glenn