Baslinux mailing list

[David Moberg <davidjmoberg AT gmail.com>]

On 12/14/05, sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Dec 2005, David Moberg wrote:
> > Why don't you take an existing kernel and make an initrd to boot from
> > SCSI with? Just take the blppaz initrd, resize it (if necessary), replace
> > the zip disk modules with a scsi controller module and change /linuxrc
> > to a script that just insmods everything.
>
> This sounds very educational.  It might wait until January when we put
> together a scsi-only computer.  We have one nice board with scsi boot and
> usb, but bad IDE controller.  Did you say your 2.4.31 kernel has scsi
> support (will boot from scsi drive) but it was broken?

I don't remember what I said. In any case, it has SCSI support, but no
built-in support for a particular SCSI card (you need a module).

> Would it be suitable as a regular kernel (minus sound)?

That would be a stretch.

> I know it should go online,

Once I include slhc. But you also need a new pppd than
what BL provides.

> Did you leave out anything besides sound that the BL3 kernels support?

Not sure.

> For usb support I would need SW91 kernel source code.  Will this compile
> with SW71 compiler and SW81 glibc?

I think it needs gcc-2.95.3. I don't have SW91 source, but the 2.4.19
documentation says gcc-2.95.3 is the minimum.

> >> The SW71 kernel probably supports lots of other controllers and has
> >> built-in support for sr and sg and other scsi devices.
> >
> > It also has NFS and many other options set to 'Y', even though they
> > could be set to 'M'.
>
> Which makes it twice as big and it takes a lot longer to boot while
> looking for all the nonexistent hardware.

Yes, it is very annoying.

> I might try scsi.s as a starter on the scsi computer and then either make
> an initrd.gz with scsi or compile a kernel if your 2.4.31 is not suitable.
> Your 2.2.16 USB won't work with my USB devices (camera and card reader).

True, but printers and mice ought to work.

> >> My neighbor's is 256MB.  I have several computers that boot from
> >> scsi.  Would newer ones boot from memory stick?
> >
> > Yes. In fact, I have one.
>
> One computer that boots from memory stick, or one memory stick?

Both.
> >> Can you make a memory stick bootable?
> >
> > Yes.
>
> Have you tried booting BL3 (the 20MB file system) from a memory stick
> using 2.4.31 kernel and an initrd.gz?

No. I don't know how to make a bootable memory stick (yet).

> Would it run faster than from hard drive?

Depends on the hard drive. USB1.1 is ~10mbps which is faster
than parallel port but slower than my slowest hard drive.

> Would you use syslinux on the memory stick?

Probably. Or grub if it would work on a memory stick.

> If it worked, could someone copy over the disk image?

Yes, but the image might be large without compression.
Not sure if it would need to be resized for a different sized
memory stick. I have 128MB.

David