Grub Question + some other information needed

[Adam Lackorzynski]

Hi,

On Mon Mar 23, 2009 at 21:41:34 +0530, mcs082803 at cse.iitd.ernet.in wrote:
> I know that a grub different from the standard is used. I downloaded the
> grub on Adam's site but have no idea how to get that diff file to work.
> There is a ReadMe called as grub-0.97-os.3.README that gives some info but
> I don't just get the fact that it is to boot from network.

Well, os.3 is just mentions it because this is one of the top features
of my version as it allows to load files via network on any recent
system.  Original Grub1 does not offer that and is not usable for those
type of scenarios.

> I am just booting from the hard disk using standard grub (with -modaddr
> option used with bootstrap), but now I need to use the vbeset command (and
> maybe others in future), so I really need that grub.
> 
>  I have done these
> 
>  $ wget ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/grub/grub-0.97.tar.gz
>  $ wget http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/~adam/grub/0.97/grub-0.97-os.7.diff.gz
>  $ tar xzf grub-0.97.tar.gz
>  $ cd grub-0.97
>  $ zcat ../grub-0.97-os.7.diff.gz | patch -p0
> 
> so what i do next? just install this grub (using install) or something
> else? because the next steps in readme seem like specific for diskless
> booting from some network.

You compile it, the usual way with calling configure and make.

> and what version of adam's grub should I download (i used the
> grub-0.97-os.7.diff.gz because it seemed latest).

Yes, latest is best.

> some other things (unrelated to above) -- can i make programs that could
> write output to some file on hard disk. Is somewhere a reference manual
> that gives info about what datatypes and functions can i use in a general
> program i write, e.g. to do something equivalent of scanf,malloc,etc.

libc like functions like scanf and malloc work as they shall.
Writing to disk is not as easy in a multi-server system as you need a
file-system and a disk driver to actually get some from and to the disk.
The probably easiest way is to use L4Linux to store data on disk.



Adam
-- 
Adam                 adam at os.inf.tu-dresden.de
  Lackorzynski         http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/~adam/