Re: [PATCH] Create floppy emulation boot CD with grub-mkimage

[Christian Franke <Christian.Franke@t-online.de>]

Pavel Roskin wrote:
> On Sat, 2008-02-09 at 22:59 +0100, Robert Millan wrote:
>
>   
>>> --boot-type=(native|emulation)
>>>                     select cdrom native (default) or floppy emulation 
>>> boot type
>>>       
>> Since it is a flag for enabling a compatibility option, I think it's more
>> like a boolean.
>>     
>
> Actually, there is also hard drive emulation, which might be useful for
> USB flash keys eventually, so it's not a boolean option.  But we can
> always change it later.
>
>   

There is a hdd emulation mode for bootable CD in the El Torito standard.

AFIAK, there is no emulation mode for bootable USB flash keys. Their 
images are identical to large floppies ("superfloppy" without 
partitions) or hard disks (with partitions). Some BIOS boot both types, 
some don't.

This results in 6 possible image variants:

1. Floppy:                 --image-type=floppy
2. CD, no emulation:       --image-type=cdrom [--emulation=none]
3. CD, floppy emulation:   --image-type=cdrom --emulation=floppy
4. CD, hdd emulation:      --image-type=cdrom --emulation=hdd
5. USB without partitions: --image-type=superfloppy
6. USB with partitions:    --image-type=hdd

It may be possible to use the image #1 as image #5.

Christian