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From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] don't require a disk image for network boot
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 19:57:56 -0500
References: <87bqjyxg10.fsf@tac.ki.iif.hu>
	<20070215101744.6a639186@thomas.toulouse>
	<200702151627.54818.paul@codesourcery.com>
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To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org
Cc: Paul Brook <paul@codesourcery.com>

On Thursday 15 February 2007 11:27 am, Paul Brook wrote:
> On Thursday 15 February 2007 09:17, Thomas Petazzoni wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Le Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:58:13 +0100,
> >
> > "andrzej zaborowski" <balrog@zabor.org> a =E9crit :
> > > Subject: don't require a disk image for network boot
> >
> > BTW, is there a reason why a disk image is required when using the
> > -kernel option ?
> >
> > In the following case: -kernel vmlinuz -append "nfsroot=3Dblabla", we
> > could boot over the network, without the need for any disk image, but
> > Qemu wants to have a disk image. Is it mandatory ?
>=20
> The BIOS doesn't know about the -kernel option, so qemu replaces the fi=
rst=20
> sector of the disk image with a dummy bootloader that jumps to the prel=
oaded=20
> kernel. It can only do that if there is an image to replace.

Yeah, but on Linux the standard workaround is to supply -hda /dev/zero, a=
nd if=20
qemu notices that it has -kernel but no hda, from a UI perspective qemu c=
ould=20
easily supply the standard workaround for itself...

Rob
--=20
"Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, but
when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exuper=
y