User manual

Etherboot User Manual
3.2. Unpacking the distribution
Unpack the distribution using gunzip and tar, using one of the following commands, where you replace x
by the patchlevel number:
tar zxvf etherboot-5.2.x.tar.gz
tar jxvf etherboot-5.2.x.tar.bz2
gunzip < etherboot-5.2.x.tar.gz | tar xvf -
bunzip2 < etherboot-5.2.x.tar.bz2 | tar xvf -
If the documentation tarball was provided separately, then in addition do this:
cd etherboot-5.2.x
followed by one of the following:
tar zxvf ../etherboot-doc-5.2.x.tar.gz
tar jxvf ../etherboot-doc-5.2.x.tar.bz2
gunzip < ../etherboot-doc-5.2.x.tar.gz | tar xvf -
bunzip2 < ../etherboot-doc-5.2.x.tar.bz2 | tar xvf -
which will extract the documentation in a subdirectory of the Etherboot top directory.
3.3. Making an Etherboot image
To build an Etherboot image you need a recent release of gcc and the binutils tools. This package has
been compiled with the tools from a SuSE 8.2 distribution but it should work with any recent Linux or
FreeBSD distribution. gas 2.9.1 is too old to handle the 16-bit code in loader.S. Use gas 2.9.5 at least.
Also the "gcc 2.96" used in RedHat 7.0 (and later versions maybe) generates faulty machine code
compiling Etherboot. Use kgcc from those distributions instead.
Go to src/, edit the options in Config and make the image that you want. A full list of options is in
Appendix B. We suggest you accept the default options for now if you are not sure what to select. Unlike
5.0, 5.2 does not make all the images by default, you have to explicitly state which ones you want.
You can test the image with a floppy before programming a ROM. On Linux just put a blank floppy in
fd0 and say
make bin/ card .zfd0
where card is the name of your network card and it will copy a bootable image onto the floppy. If you
wish to do this by hand, perhaps because your floppy drive is elsewhere, just make bin/
card .zdsk and
copy this binary to the floppy raw, i.e. starting at the boot block.
cat bin/3c509.zdsk > /dev/fd0
You can also use utilities such as rawrite to write the image onto the floppy.
Make sure the floppy has no bad blocks. It is best if it has been formatted just before use. You do not
need to put any kind of filesystem on it. If you wish, you could substitute /dev/fd0 with the actual device
suitable for the floppy size you are using, for example /dev/fd0H1440 for 1.44 MB floppies. This may be
more reliable than using the autodetecting device /dev/fd0.
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