The boot-floppies package contains all of the source code and
documentation for the installation floppies.
The Rescue Floppy has an Ext2 filesystem (or a FAT filesystem, depending on
your architecture), and you should be able to access it from anything else that
can mount Ext2 or FAT disks. The Linux kernel is in the file
linux. The file root.bin is a
gzip-compressed disk image of a 1.4MB Minix or Ext2 filesystem,
and will be loaded into the RAM disk and used as the root filesystem.
If you find it necessary to replace the kernel on the Rescue Floppy, you must configure your new kernel with these features linked in, not in loadable modules:
On BVM and Motorola VMEbus systems you should use the vmelilo
utility with the vmelilo.conf file found in the /etc
directory on the floppy.
You'll also want to replace the modules.tgz file on the Driver
Floppies. This file simply contains a gzip-compressed tar file of
/lib/modules/kernel-ver; make it from the root
filesystem so that all leading directories are in the tar file as well.
The base floppies contain a 512-byte header followed by a portion of a
gzip-compressed tar archive. If you strip off the headers and
then concatenate the contents of the base floppies, the result should be the
compressed tar archive. The archive contains the base system that will be
installed on your hard disk.
Once this archive is installed, you must go through the steps described in ``Configure the Base System'',
Section 7.15, and other dbootstrap menu items to configure the
network, and you must install the operating system kernel and modules on your
own. Once you have done that, the system should be usable.
As for the post-installation tasks, those are mostly handled by the
base-config package.