Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

More progress.  I discovered my zip disk was defective (would not even 
format) and got another one.  I also realized that you need to edit the 
new fstab if you copy the file system from ext2 hd partition to a loop 
file (change /dev/hdb1 or whatever your partition is to /dev/loop0).  I 
now have something that will boot properly from e:\baslin but is 50MB 
instead of 20MB and contains changes I made to the hd version.

When this file boots there are some error messages - why?

change_root: old root has d_count=2
Trying to unmount old root in <3> error -16
Change root to initrd:  error -2

It boots anyway.

My next problem is that this parallel port zip drive appears not to work. 
It lights up, and I have it plugged into parport0 or into the printer 
switch box which is switched properly, but 'no ppa compatible devices 
found'.  This might be why it was in a dumpster.  I have one other that 
someone donated to the Reuse Center.  Might I be doing anything wrong? 
Iomega Z100P2 with the cable it came with, which looks just like the scsi 
cable on the scsi zip drive.  25-pin D-shell type.  Are the two types of 
cable wired differently?  Should I try a different cable?  This is an 
Iomega blue cable, labelled 'zip' but not scsi or parallel.


David's blppaz.gz image for booting from floppy disk seems to be working - 
it just cannot insmod ppa.o.  It is based on grub rather than lilo.

Is grub bigger or more confusing to use than lilo?

On Mon, 18 Apr 2005, sindi keesan wrote:

> I am trying to set up BL3 on a 50MB partition on a zip disk, to be used with 
> a parallel port zip drive and a boot disk (David Moberg's blppaz.gz 
> uncompressed and copied with dd to a floppy disk) so that I can have a 
> portable linux computer which is smaller than  laptop and can be used at 
> friends' houses if they have a parallel port.  (I might also need to bring 
> along an external modem - do all computers with parport now also have serial 
> port?).
>
> David's instructions were for how to make a 50MB empty .img file and copy the 
> files from the 20MB .img file that is provided by the BL3 loop installation.
>
> I eventually managed to copy the files, instead, from a 200MB ext2 partition 
> (where I had added icewm, abiword, links2, kermit, lynx 2.8.5, and glibc 
> 2.2.5 - 2.1.3 would be adequate for lynx, but I want to be able to also add 
> opera and xpdf precompiled).  I have about 40MB total files.  Opera could be 
> added in about 12MB more if wanted but my zip disk is only 100MB and I also 
> use it to move files between computers.  I should get another 100MB disk.
>
> dd if=/dev/zero of=fs50.img bs=1024k count=50
> This creates and empty file with 50 1024K blocks (50MB).
>
> mke2fs fs50.img   puts a file system onto it
>
> mount -o loop fs50.img /mnt    mounts the file system so you can use it
>
> mount /dev/hdb1 /hd             mounts my BL3 ext2 hd partition
>
> cp -a /hd/* /mnt                copies files from partition to .img file
>
> umount /hd
> umount /mnt
>
> mount /dev/hda3 /hd             mounts DOS partition containing BL3
> cp fs50.img /hd/baslin          copy new .img file to baslin directory
>
> rename fs.img fs20.img
> rename fs50.img fs.img
>
> reboot and then boot the loop BL3 as usual.
> I am online with this new 50MB loop file version.
>
>
> Next I need to reboot with the zip drive turned on (or maybe I can just turn 
> it on then chroot to BL2, which I have set up with scsi modules), insmod the 
> modules needed by the scsi zip drive (I have not yet figured out how to use 
> the parport drive - I think I just add ppa.o),
>
> mkdir /zip
>
> mount /dev/sda4 /zip    mount the zip drive
> mkdir /zip/baslin       make a /baslin directory on the zip disk
>
> cp fs50.img /zip/baslin/fs.img  copy the .img file to the zip drive
>                                 in /baslin
>
> Then hook up the parport zip drive, turn it on, reboot with the
> parport boot disk and it is supposed to load BL3 from zip disk.
>
> I will report back if this does not work right.


While the fs.img file is still mounted, you need to edit fstab to change 
from the ext2 hd partition to loop0.  It booted anyway but mtab looked a 
bit odd - I was seeing /dev/hdb1 also mounted to / along with /dev/loop0.