I'm currently using Daniel Steen's rboot scripts for dual booting (I've got an Opie and a GPE image on SD). What are the differences/similarities (advantages/disadvantages) between what you are doing here and the rboot stuff?
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The principle of operation is exactly the same for altboot and rboot (what does the "r" stand for btw?):
- Mount an external medium
- pivot_root into it
- call /sbin/init.
So any image that works with altboot will work with rboot and the other way around
I didn't play with rboot a lot so I really am the wrong person to comment on its advantages or disadvantages, however the current features of altboot are:
- Written with multi-device support in mind.
- Available in OE (so it will most likely appear in the official feeds for OZ 3.5.4+)
- Due to the first two points, it could be ported to any PDA supported by OE (iPAQ, Simpads, etc)
- Can boot ext2 filesystem "images" (ie: loop-images)
and a real filesystem on the card
You can even copy more than one image onto the card and you'll be presented a list to choose
the one to boot (OPIE / GPE dual-boot anyone?). And there's no need to edit any config files
- Can boot from SD and CF
- Can boot into init=/bin/sh
- Can do all sorts of nice things by writing small shell scripts which are placed into /etc/altboot-menu
The scripts will appear in the boot menu. Having external scripts is very useful as you can't possibly
break altboot in a way that you need the re-flash your device. Only your script will break, but altboot
will still work just fine.
- Installation is as easy as it gets: ipkg install altboot (just don't install it to SD or CF heh that will render your Z unbootable)