Modern days Linux kernel requires a bootloader, as seen in the video. In the old days, you could dd the kernel to the floppy disk and use rdev to point to the root partition to start after loading the kernel.
What about EFI?
Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel
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Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel
#32I wonder how well it works. If you take an x86_64 system and make a memory control group with only 32MB of memory (and kmem tracking is enabled, which is true by default) the container will OOM right away. I've been operating under the belief that Linux now requires 64MB at a minimum, but perhaps a 32-bit uniprocessor build can get by with less.
> the container will OOM right away
that doesn't really makes sense in linux-parlance. you should try and see which is the process that is actually triggering the OOM.
if you're able to do that then you can try and swap that with another binary.
you could try and build an hello world that does while(1) sleep(30); build that with static linking and boot the container with that -- it will probably work.
also, i should look for that page, but i remember reading a page about trimming away anything possible from an hello world binary and ending up with something as small as like ~60 bytes.
Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel
#33I wonder how well it works. If you take an x86_64 system and make a memory control group with only 32MB of memory (and kmem tracking is enabled, which is true by default) the container will OOM right away. I've been operating under the belief that Linux now requires 64MB at a minimum, but perhaps a 32-bit uniprocessor build can get by with less.
> the container will OOM right away that doesn't really makes sense in linux-parlance. you should try and see which is the process that is actually triggering the OOM. if you're able to do that then you can try and swap that with another binary. you could try and build an hello world that does while(1) sleep(30); build that with static linking and boot the container with that -- it will probably work. also, i should…
here it is!
https://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/software/tiny/teensy.ht...
i was off by a bit. the binary is 45 bytes and prints the number "42" (plus a newline).
Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel
#34Now that it boots, time to bring up a Kubernetes and deploy a Spark cluster
Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel
#35I wonder how well it works. If you take an x86_64 system and make a memory control group with only 32MB of memory (and kmem tracking is enabled, which is true by default) the container will OOM right away. I've been operating under the belief that Linux now requires 64MB at a minimum, but perhaps a 32-bit uniprocessor build can get by with less.
> the container will OOM right away that doesn't really makes sense in linux-parlance. you should try and see which is the process that is actually triggering the OOM. if you're able to do that then you can try and swap that with another binary. you could try and build an hello world that does while(1) sleep(30); build that with static linking and boot the container with that -- it will probably work. also, i should…
I see that you haven't tried it.
Note: read for comprehension.
A container may OOM from kernel memory alone.
Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel
#36Modern days Linux kernel requires a bootloader, as seen in the video. In the old days, you could dd the kernel to the floppy disk and use rdev to point to the root partition to start after loading the kernel.
What about EFI?
there was no EFI. it was BIOS as far as your eyes could see.
Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel
#37Does anyone else miss having this level of motivation? And that's not an isolation effect on me, I gave up on trying fun things like this for a long long time now.
Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
But then you wouldn't show up in HN's frontpage doing something completely meaningless.
Sometimes fun is the only meaning you need! I think this is definitely in keeping with the hacker spirit and belongs on the front page for that reason alone.
For the record, I fully support this attitude to life. Doing it for its own sake is totally a virtuous pursuit.
Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel
#39I wonder how well it works. If you take an x86_64 system and make a memory control group with only 32MB of memory (and kmem tracking is enabled, which is true by default) the container will OOM right away. I've been operating under the belief that Linux now requires 64MB at a minimum, but perhaps a 32-bit uniprocessor build can get by with less.
What are you putting in your container? A trivial container with non-bloated userspace should not take nearly that much memory.
Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel
#40Almost 20 years ago i have internet, but didn't buy router. And found floppyfw:
https://www.zelow.no/floppyfw/
Absolutely brilliant distribution that works perfect. And fit on one floppy - kernel and userspace.