User manual

Etherboot User Manual
You need gcc, gas and binutils, as well as any accompanying libraries and include files. Generally
speaking on a package based system using RPM or DEB, you will need the C compiler package, the
include file package, the C library package, the assembler package and the binutils package (this
may include the assembler). You will also need perl if you modify the file NIC or use a different
RELOCADDR value in the Makefile than the default, and m4 if you modify this file userman.xsgml.
2. I get an error from as saying data32 is an unknown directive or it has errors with assembler files.
Your gas is too old, upgrade to 2.9.5.
3. I get warnings about ljmp *.
They are harmless, you can ignore these. They are due to changes in the assembler syntax between
gas versions. We could get rid of the warnings if we could easily detect which patches are installed
in the version of gas you are using (it’s not just a matter of detecting the gas version) but we’d rather
just wait for the old gas versions to disappear since they are just warnings.
4. The documentation talks about mkelf-linux and mknbi-dos. Where are they?
These are distributed from the Etherboot web site (http://sourceforge.net/projects/etherboot/).
5. Why don’t you provide prebuilt ROM images?
rom-o-matic.net (http://rom-o-matic.net) is the answer. This is a site that makes ROM images for you
on demand from specifications given to a web form and returns the image as the result of the form.
9.2. Testing Etherboot
1. I put the ROM image on floppy like you wrote (cat bin/boot1a.bin bin/foo.rom > /dev/fd0, or make
bin/foo.fd0) but the loader prints out an error.
The floppy you use should be an error-free, preferably a recently formatted floppy. Do not trust new
floppies; they have been known to lose their manufacturer formatting in storage. You don’t need to
put a filesystem of any sort on it, FAT or ext2 or otherwise. Another possible cause is that there are
alignment differences between the drive used to write the floppy and that used on the target machine.
2. My network adapter is detected but I get no reply to the BOOTP/DHCP request.
Do you have a BOOTP or DHCP server running on the same Ethernet segment? On many operating
systems the server is not enabled by default. Review the instructions in the Troubleshooting section.
Another thing to note is that the BOOTP (or DHCP in fixed address mode) server will not reply if it
does not know the network adapter’s Ethernet address. Since the address may be hard to determine if
it is not printed on the card or you do not have the adapter’s setup program, you can copy it from
Etherboot’s startup message. Did you also provide a filename with the DHCP offer? Offers with no
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