Floppy Boot Helper

[CarolineM]

the Sugar on a Stick page gives a link to a product that might enable us to start a boot from a Floppy.

You can also use the "PLoP Boot Manager" to create a boot floppy for machines without the ability to boot from CD or USB, see:

*

​http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/No_native_BIOS_support

This would be very useful. The problem with CDs is that you have to have the computer on to get the CD Drawer open, then reboot it, making it annoying. A Floppy would be much easier for the school to use.

This ticket is a request to create a Floppy Boot Helper image that works with SoaS Fedora

[CarolineM]

Details on the use case here: ​http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Gardner_Pilot_Academy

[bogstad]

I strongly suspect that

​http://www.solemnwarning.net/kexec-loader/

would be a good way to provide this functionality. I haven't used
it, but it claims to do exactly what is desired in a pretty generic
way. If it works as advertised, it should be possible to use
an unmodified SoaS, by just pointing the config files for kexec-loader at the vmlinuz0 and initrd0.img files on the USB stick.

[bogstad]

Just wanted to update this bug. I've been working on using kexec-loader as I previously suggested. A proof of concept solution now exists and I'm working with CarolineM to get it tested at GPA.

[sdz]

For reference: ​http://people.sugarlabs.org/~bogstad/floppy/

Please make sure to document the ways of using it in the wiki. I'm closing this for now as part of a recent bug triaging session. Make sure to re-open it in case this is still unfinished.

Thanks!

[sascha_silbe]

Bulk change distribution=SoaS -> component=SoaS