Dear Tom,
When I was running my system under Linux-2.0.x/libc-5/bash-1.x it was possible for me to build a boot/root rescue disk set using floppies with a capacity > 1700k (with yard-1.17). This included all the tools I needed.
A while ago I switched to Linux-2.2.x/glibc-2.1/bash-2.0x and realized quickly that even 1760k are not enough for this combination. So I decided to change the yard configuration to get the following disk set:
1) A single boot/root floppy containing both kernel and the most important system utilities (using `$disk_set = "single";' in Config.pl). The capacity of this floppy is only 1440k -- I feel much better with this density.
2) An additional 1440k floppy containing all other system utilities in an bzipped afio-Archive. I used afio because it is quite small and does not use additional libraries beside libc. In addition I want to have both bzip and afio on my rescue disk set. To load the archive I use the following statements at the top of the `rc' script:
read -p "Insert additional AFIO floppy disk and press ENTER... " ANS
until /bin/bzip2 -d < /dev/fd0 2> /dev/null | /usr/bin/afio -i -; do
read -p "Error: could not read AFIO floppy disk, try again... " ANS
done
To create the afio-archive I used the self-written shell script `write_afio_disk' (I have no experience with perl). Since this is not really integrated into yard I have to select all the additional files and libraries `by hand'. In fact I used trial and error to get the complete set of files and libraries. Quite inconvenient.
I'll append a tar.gz archive of my whole /etc/yard/ directory below, including also `write_afio_disk'. It would be nice if you could have a look at my concept and maybe comment on it. Do you think you can include my ideas in future versions of yard? Maybe it would be nice to have two sections in `Bootdisk_Contents', one for the basic root-disk and a second for the additional compressed afio (or tar) archive.
I like this modified concept because I can still use 1440k floppies and both floppies are used very efficiently.
Very best wishes and thank you for your excellent work,
Stefan