Re: [PLUG] cdrom business cards -- compression ?

[Jason Costomiris <jcostom@jasons.org>]

On Mon, Apr 03, 2000 at 12:10:12PM -0400, Darxus wrote:
: They hold 50mb.  My 1st thought was "how do I do a compressed root
: filesystem?"  Then I found http://cvs.bofh.asn.au/e2compr/ - e2compr:
: Transparent compression for ext2 filesystem, which has apparently been
: usable since 1997, but is still not distributed with the kernel (you have
: to patch it).  

Interesting..  Wonder what the performance impact is..

: Then I started talking to one of the guys here about it and he made the
: comment that he didn't think you could put an ext2fs on a cd, and that you
: had to use an iso9660 filesystem.  

He's correct.

: How the hell do I create a bootable cdrom under linux ?

Create a floppy that boots the way you like, using syslinux or LILO, then:

dd if=/dev/fd0 of=boot.img bs=72k

Now take a look at the -b flag to mkisofs.  That will help you make a
bootable iso9660 image.

: Okay, there's mkisofs, which takes a bunch of files & builds an iso9660
: filesystem out of them.  

That's the only way I know of to master a CD under Linux...

: Eww, wait, no, that would just give me a compressed fat filesystem.  It
: does support umsdos, so it is an option.... any better ways ?

Yeah, fit it all in 50 MB or less! :)  Look at the qnx demo floppies, they
fit the whole OS demo on a floppy, surely you can fit what you need in 
50 MB or less.  I'd look at doing things like framebuffer kernels using
the framebuffer X server, and so forth..

-- 
                 Jason Costomiris <><
            Technologist, cryptogeek, human.
jcostom {at} jasons {dot} org  |  http://www.jasons.org/ 

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