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

I am again trying to make a 1 floppy BL3, with one of David's new USB 
kernels.

Last time I made a bl3.gz and used the BL2 ramdisk method to boot (see 
below), by replacing the file system.

This time I am attempting to use Steven's 2-floppy lilo method, making a 
changed copy of disk 1 to which I can boot and then Ctrl-C (don't use the 
second disk with X, because the USB kernel can't do X anyway).  If I mount 
/dev/fd0 /fd and ls /fd I can see on disk1:  disk1.gz (the file system), 
boot.b, map, and zimage.

To make a USB lilo-boot 1-floppy BL3, I can replace zimage with the USB 
kernel (naming it zimage) on the first floppy disk, but which kernel 
should I use?

1) David's first kernel, which is tested working with ext2 BL2 and BL3, 
but is said not to work with ramdisk BL2 (so I can't use a ramdisk BL3 
either) or loop linux.  And may not recognize msdos or vfat file 
systems.  What about 2-floppy lilo linux?

2) his second kernel, which was supposed to have support for my SM card,
and comes with an initrd that mounts loop so can be used to boot 
loop BL3.  If so, what do I do with initrd and do I need to modify boot.b 
or map, which I can't even read because they are binary?

If neither kernel will work with 2-floppy lilo-boot BL3, could David 
please modify initrd.gz to work with ramdisk or come up with some other 
method of getting a small usb kernel into a 1 or 2 floppy BL set, thanks.

I just took a look at initrd.gz after gunzipping it and mounting it: mount 
-o loop initrd /mnt.  It contains directories similar to the regular BL3 
initrd.gz, a sort of mini-filesystem.  Under /bin is losetup and insmod 
and umount, etc.  In /lib/modules/2.4.31/kernel are several directories 
with modules (add .o):  /drivers/block/loop - should a similar module for 
ramdisk go here?  /scsi/scsi_mod and sd_mod.  /ide/ide-core, -detect, 
-disk, /usb (-core -uhci -ohci -storage)  and /kernel/host/fat and vfat


I presume for the Bl2 method loop.o would need to be replaced with 
ramdisk.o in initrd.gz, but then would I just replace initfs.gz with 
initrd.gz and the BL2 kernel with the second USB kernel?  Or does the 
kernel itself need to be recompiled to support ramdisk?

Will the lilo 2-floppy BL3 method work with this kernel and if so, what do 
I do with the modules and do I need to edit boot.b and/or map?  I don't 
see anything resmebling initrd.gz here.

I am getting rather tangled in these loops, and probably mixing up 
methods.  I see why I was advised not to fiddle with the BL2 2-floppy 
set.  David or Steven, Help!!!!!

Slackware 9.1 live CD will probably work with the camera, unless we run 
into a laptop with usb but no CD-ROM drive, but it is slower to boot, and 
not nearly as impressive.   We will take that too.  We own one laptop with 
missing floppy drive that has USB (won't work with DOS, probably uhci) and 
CD-ROM drive.

On Wed, 15 Dec 2004, sindi keesan wrote:

> I have compiled a BL2-type version of BL3 with bl3.gz on a floppy disk, which 
> file I copied to the baslin directory on another computer and I am using it 
> to dial, telnet, and type this mail at a shell account.
>
> 1.  Stuck in disk1 of BL3 2-floppy version and booted.
> 2.  Deleted anything to do with X, games (there was one), pcmcia, also e3vi 
> which is 12K and is not a link to e3pi.  I left setleds.
>
> umount /usr/X11R6 - I probably should have left it for use as a /tmp and just 
> deleted files from it later.
>
> I tried doing dd if=/dev/ram1 and got a lot of garbage and did a reset.
> What is this supposed to accomplish?
>
> I started with 2060 bytes used in ram0 and 1945 free.
>
> I then inserted disk2, mounted it to /fd, and pkg disk2.tgz.
> Since there was no ram1 after it ran out of space, but I had already 
> installed the modules.  I deleted X again.
>
> I copied disk2.tgz to hard drive and unpackaged it there and noticed that it 
> contains modules and X and links and another game.
>
> I now had links and the modules in ram0.  I deleted the pcmcia and ethernet 
> modules to make a Bl3 suitable for a very old laptop with 4-bit greyscale 
> that won't be very useful with X anyway and can't do X in 8MB in RAMdisk.
>
> I then stuck in an empty 1.44MB DOS floppy disk and mounted it.
> cat /dev/ram0|gzip > /fd/bl3.gz
>
> After a few minutes I ended up with bl3.gz on floppy disk, which I copied
> to the baslin directory on another computer.  I looked at the boot.bat from 
> Bl2 and typed while in baslin
>
> loadlin zimage root=/dev/ram initrd=bl3.gz rw
>
> This is rw, whereas BL2 requires ro, otherwise this is the same as the bl2 
> boot.bat
>
> It booted, told me to insert disk2, I typed Ctrl-C, then Enter, and then 
> remembered I had forgotten to run pppsetup before making bl3.gz.
>
> I did not bother to delete ram1 on this computer since there is enough RAM 
> leftover (16M total).
>
> I have 2435 MB of files in ram0.  There should be space for links2 but I 
> don't know if I will have enough RAM for it since links-0.90 cannot list the 
> contents of disk2.tgz on that laptop right now.
>
> I could have left the second 2.5MB ramdisk and made bl3.gz on that, but it 
> did fit into 1.13MB on the floppy disk and this way I had more RAM to work 
> in.  I don't know which way would have been faster - gzip to floppy after 
> copying to ram1 (2435 bytes should have just barely fit, but won't if I add 
> links2).
>
> If links2 does not fit on the second floppy disk in bl3.tgz I can put it, 
> with a library file or two from svgalib and seejpeg and the correct config 
> file to utilize them, on another floppy disk, such as the DOS boot disk onto 
> which I will put loadlin and zimage. I will then have a BL3 2-floppy set 
> which boots with loadlin (except on three of my computers which don't boot 
> with loadlin) and functions pretty much like BL2 2-floppy except for having a 
> smaller kernel, smaller libraries, and hopefully links2 (which I needed today 
> to order glasses online because of javascript).
>
> Links runs out of memory on the laptop when I go to the /fd and type d and 
> right arrow at disk2.tgz.  I probably won't get very far trying to run it in 
> 4MB RAM.  How would I go about adding swap-space to a BL3 that is running in 
> RAMdisk?  I could copy over the loop-version swap file to the hard drive of a 
> computer (from floppy disk containing the zip file and pkunzip), but how do I 
> instruct Bl3 to use it?  swapon?
>
> This 2-floppy set could be used on a friend's computer while visiting. Just 
> add a non-winmodem.  Modem plus 2 floppies is much more portable than laptop 
> plus external keyboard plus modem.
>
> I know the regular BL3 2-floppy set would also work but it is not easily 
> modified and does not have links2, and BL2 2-floppy set is easily modified 
> but the links2 for BL2 is enormous (from delilinux).  I might also add 
> minicom since Kermit is too large and microcom does not like my bbs, and even 
> photopc (if we get seejpeg going) which we currently have on a DOS bootdisk 
> (for downloading from a digital camera with serial cable). I can delete more 
> manpages if I need space, and store them on floppy disk.
>
> Joel ought to be able to do something similar with BL3 in order to use his 
> (laptop?) computer without a hard drive but with pcmcia wireless, just change 
> to the correct modules for his kernel, add the wireless module, remove 
> anything he is sure not to use so that it will fit on a floppy disk2 and put 
> loadlin and the 2.2.26 kernel on disk1.  You could even do this with 1.2MB 
> floppy disks.
>
> Why not just use the laptop with its wireless networking to connect to a 
> desktop computer that has a browser already on it instead of running links 
> from the laptop?
>
> More details when I get seejpeg and links2 into the package or into a second 
> package.  I could just put Steven's links2 package on the first disk.
>
> Magic.
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keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org