Hello everyone,
I am currently working for Utah State University and we are searching for a
way to run a web browser from a CDROM or Floppy drive. We have machines set
up around campus that access our OpenVMS system to read email, but we would
like to upgrade all of these machines to something with web-browsing
capabilities. We have just started looking in to QNX and were wondering if
it can be run from a CDROM.
Basically, the machines that we will be running this on will have no
harddrives nor any server to connect to. We like this because it prevents
students from making any modifications to the system. If an error occurs, we
can simply reboot the machine and have everything back up and running
without any problems.
If anyone has any suggestions for running QNX from a CDROM (if it can be
done), please let me know.
Aaron Auman
aarona@cc.usu.edu
Yes it can be done. Check the floppy demo, it might be just what you
need. If not enough, you can crank your own bootable CD with everything
you need, based on RTP.
A Auman wrote:
Hello everyone,
I am currently working for Utah State University and we are searching for a
way to run a web browser from a CDROM or Floppy drive. We have machines set
up around campus that access our OpenVMS system to read email, but we would
like to upgrade all of these machines to something with web-browsing
capabilities. We have just started looking in to QNX and were wondering if
it can be run from a CDROM.
Basically, the machines that we will be running this on will have no
harddrives nor any server to connect to. We like this because it prevents
students from making any modifications to the system. If an error occurs, we
can simply reboot the machine and have everything back up and running
without any problems.
If anyone has any suggestions for running QNX from a CDROM (if it can be
done), please let me know.
Aaron Auman
aarona@cc.usu.edu
“Igor Kovalenko” <Igor.Kovalenko@motorola.com> wrote in message
news:3A786A7D.5AD2789A@motorola.com…
Yes it can be done. Check the floppy demo, it might be just what you
need. If not enough, you can crank your own bootable CD with everything
you need, based on RTP.
The floppy demo looks like it might work for us. However, after installing
it, it seems to hang on bootup. I created a boot disk from a windows machine
and it gave an error about the BIOS and didn’t do anything else. After
installing from a QNX machine, I have a screen that says: QNX Demodisk
Loader v1.5, 100%. Then it stops and doesn’t do anything else.
I will look for some information on creating an image for a bootable CD. A
more up-to-date version of Voyager may be a better thing at any rate. If
anyone has some tips to make this go better, feel free to offer.
Aaron
I’d recommend doing a little searching into this BIOS problem before expecting a CD to boot
properly.
The CD will at least at the beginning emulate a floppy and thus be subject to most of the same
limitations.
Try the Floppy in another PC.
-Paul
A Auman <aarona@cc.usu.edu> wrote in message news:959r7c$lkf$1@inn.qnx.com…
“Igor Kovalenko” <> Igor.Kovalenko@motorola.com> > wrote in message
news:> 3A786A7D.5AD2789A@motorola.com> …
Yes it can be done. Check the floppy demo, it might be just what you
need. If not enough, you can crank your own bootable CD with everything
you need, based on RTP.
The floppy demo looks like it might work for us. However, after installing
it, it seems to hang on bootup. I created a boot disk from a windows machine
and it gave an error about the BIOS and didn’t do anything else. After
installing from a QNX machine, I have a screen that says: QNX Demodisk
Loader v1.5, 100%. Then it stops and doesn’t do anything else.
I will look for some information on creating an image for a bootable CD. A
more up-to-date version of Voyager may be a better thing at any rate. If
anyone has some tips to make this go better, feel free to offer.
Aaron
“A Auman” <aarona@cc.usu.edu> wrote : Hi Auman I belive it is very well possible with qnx
rtp (i have no experience with qnx4). Look through qnx rtp docs (lotsa info
there), there you will find a way to build a system image that you can use to
boot from floppy/flash,et al
So what you need to do in a nutshell is
- make a system image with necesary drivers to use (ie just mount)cdrom (
libcam,devc-*…) take care it shouldn’t exceed ~620KB (632max) 2) make other
products list that you want (photon, its libs, telnet, net drivers, voyager
etc) and copy them somewhere with proper hierachy 3) in your system image,
after loading the drivers mount the cdrom , set your /tmp to /dev/shmem (for
writable /tmp) and make /tmp home for the user… also mount/link/map
suitable folders in cdrom to /bin, /lib, /etc, /usr etc 4) start network
through your script 5) start photon…!! 6) now since you have a writable
(ram disk though), no app should crib, voyager etc can peacefully use it for
storing cookies etc. (the OS wont crib… it is happy even when it has
nothing to write to…) 7) burn a cd with the programs stuff and use the
floppy image to make it bootable (the cd writing software should give you an
option to do it… adaptec/nero do)
enjoy… ps. let me know if it works for you… I believe it should and I do
not see ANY reason that it shouldn’t… also since you will be having network
on those comps (since you want voyager), try using network booting or
mounting filesystem of a running qnx system readonly (for making all apps
available) through nfs (there is an example in the help file) and map home
directory of users to /dev/shmem/guest (e.g)
this should be faster & easier than the first method… also you can update
one system with changes reflecting all!! (qnx rtp is a happening OS, voyager
of new release of qnx rtp supports SSL and html 4.0 + Flash!!)
–
Keep Smiling
Mechanically Yours
A ship ought not to be held by one anchor, nor life by a single hope.
Sophomore Undergraduate
Mechanical Engg.
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
India
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
The browser on the demodisk leaves much to be desired. When I tried it,
it worked with Hotmail but not Yahoo Mail. QNX RTP 6 would be much
better.
A Auman wrote:
“Igor Kovalenko” <> Igor.Kovalenko@motorola.com> > wrote in message
news:> 3A786A7D.5AD2789A@motorola.com> …
Yes it can be done. Check the floppy demo, it might be just what you
need. If not enough, you can crank your own bootable CD with everything
you need, based on RTP.
The floppy demo looks like it might work for us. However, after installing
it, it seems to hang on bootup. I created a boot disk from a windows machine
and it gave an error about the BIOS and didn’t do anything else. After
installing from a QNX machine, I have a screen that says: QNX Demodisk
Loader v1.5, 100%. Then it stops and doesn’t do anything else.
I will look for some information on creating an image for a bootable CD. A
more up-to-date version of Voyager may be a better thing at any rate. If
anyone has some tips to make this go better, feel free to offer.
Aaron
hojbjerg@my-deja.com wrote:
So the procedure for making a CDROM bootable is actually to create a
bootable floppy disk and then Nero can use that floppy disk to make a
CDROM bootable?
Research the “El Torito” bootable CD-ROM standard. The boot floppy
image on the CD becomes the A: drive. If you have a real floppy it
becomes B:. Without a hard drive or hard drive partition the booted
OS can see, the rest of the cd becomes C:. Just using DOS conventions
here, Linux, QNX etc do the equivalent. I think you can use a 2.88M
boot image, might not actually be any restrictions on “floppy” size.