Hans Reiser's Journaling File System on Debian/GNU Linux
" How to create rescue and root installation disks for the reiser FS "

Last updated 2001-07-30 5:40 pm

Original kernel configuration file

Here is original kernel configuration file on the rescue floppy (config.gz). The size of compressed kernel image is currently 1,042,807 bytes long.

GNU GRUB, a multiboot compliant boot loader

I strongly recommend you to use GNU GRUB as a boot loader, instead of using the famous loader LILO. GRUB is a slightly complicated system, but its initial loader directly understands various file systems (including both of reiser FS 3.5 and 3.6!) and kernel executable formats without a help of kernel. LILO is desgined to be simple, and it works on a pre-calculated physical sector map of a target kernel on a hard disk. So, LILO users have to re-caliculate the map and re-install it everytime kernel is changed. In contrast, once GRUB was installed to a hard disk and specifieed with a root disk partition and an absolute pathname of a kernel, you won't be bothered with tedious re-installation steps. Then, why not using GRUB? I will show you the way.

First of all, download the lastest source archive of GNU GRUB and extract it in your /usr/src. GNU GRUB is in still beta version and its number is 0.5.96.1.
Then, read INSTALL file in the archive. In short, typical setup steps are...

# ./configure
# make
# make install

Compiled start up codes are now stored in /usr/local/share/grub/i386-pc by default. GRUB itself is stored in /usr/local/sbin. However, these stub bootup codes are still inactive. They are need to be copied into /boot/grub of a root disk partition and activated by grub-install shell script (a wrapper for the grub shell).
# grub-install /dev/hda

This installs GRUB into MBR of 1st IDE drive.

# grub-install /dev/hda2

This installs GRUB into 2nd partition of 1st IDE drive.

Now, you will find several files in /boot/grub as follows.

drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root          320 Oct 25 17:43 .
drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root          144 Oct 25 17:55 ..
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root           30 Oct 25 17:36 device.map
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root         7580 Oct 25 17:36 e2fs_stage1_5
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root         7116 Oct 25 17:36 fat_stage1_5
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root         6588 Oct 25 17:36 ffs_stage1_5
-rw-------    1 root     root          360 Oct 25 17:57 menu.lst
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root         6780 Oct 25 17:36 minix_stage1_5
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root         9116 Oct 25 17:36 reiserfs_stage1_5
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          512 Oct 25 17:36 stage1
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        78816 Oct 25 17:36 stage2
stage1 is a program stored in the boot sector (512 means sector size). There are various stage1_5 codes for each target file systems including Linux Ext2, DOS FAT, Fast file system (FFS), Minix, and Reiser FS. Thanks to the codes, GRUB can understand target file system and read into a kernel by itself.
Finally, create a GRUB configuration file /boot/grub/menu.lst. Here is a my configuration file. NOTE: there is a GRUB's way in device naming convention. For example, Linux's /dev/hda1 coreesponds to (hd0, 0), and /dev/hdb3 corresponds to (hd1, 2). Drive and partition numbers are counted from zero! setup(hd0, 0) will install GRUB on the MBR, and setup(hd0,1) will install on the second partition. In addition, GRUB does not distinguish IDE from SCSI drives. For the detailed usage, please refer to grub.info.

/boot/grub/menu.lst 

##### /boot/grub/menu.lst GRUB configuration file.

default 0
timeout 5
color light-gray/blue yellow/brown

### ReiserFS on Linux 2.4

title Linux 2.4.0
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.0-t9-rfs18 root=/dev/hda2

### ReiserFS on Linux 2.2

title Linux 2.2.17
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.2.17-rfs27 root=/dev/hda3

### Reinstall of GRUB

title Reinstall GRUB into MBR of hda
root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0)