Very Computer

I am curious to know how one would configure the anaconda
program that runs off the bootnet.img to install a predefined
list of packages.

How does one look inside these boot images? I thought it might
be possible to mount them somehow?

 -walter

Ok here's the skinny on the bootnet.img and other images files. These
images are esstential fully floppy disk images. Their file sytem format is
FAT (vfat will work). The first sector on the disk also has a standard x86
boot loader (vi SYSLINUX). One can easily mount the image and take a peek
inside via the loopback device driver.

Example:

cp bootnet.img /tmp
mkdir testmnt
mount -t vfat bootnet.img ./testmnt -o loop=/dev/loop0
cd testmnt
ls -l

You must make sure your kernel either has support for the vfat filesystem
(cat /proc/filesystems) and loopback device driver support (cat
/proc/devices). If not, you'll have to recompile or load the correct
modules (loop.o and vfat.o).

Cheers,
Jeremy

Almost forgot, one file contained in the image is the initrd.img. This
image is a compressed ext2 filesystem image that's decompressed and mounted
as a temporary / during the boot process. It can also be mounted and peeked
at.

Jeremy