Baslinux mailing list

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

On Fri, 10 Feb 2006, David Moberg wrote:

> sindi keesan wrote:
> > > Maybe it would be easier. Give it a try and see. Right: if you have the
> > > necessary USB modules compiled into the kernel, there's no need for an
> > > initrd, I guess.
> >
> > Maybe this weekend.  I would start a fresh BL3.40 loop, add netpbm or part
> > of it (do we want to print from the camera?)  and copy it via the 1-floppy
> > 2.4.31 rather than install-to-hd, to as small a partition as possible
> > (less than 20MB) on the memory card.  Then replace the 2.2.26 modules with
> > any wanted 2.4.31 modules (slhc, ppp*?).


Apparently you cannot treat a memory card like a hard disk or floppy disk. 
The manual for the camera says you can 'format' the memory card, but that 
is incorrect, what you are doing is simply making directories in the DOS 
partition.  So I can not set up an ext2 linux.  I should be able, however, 
to put an image file of some linux into the existing DOS partition, maybe 
in a /linux directory.

The 1-floppy USB linux disk made by David includes loop.o so I was able to 
boot with it, insmod loop, mount /dev/hda1 /hd, cd /hd/baslin, mount -o 
loop fs.img /mnt, chroot /mnt /bin/sh and run BL3.40.

I don't know if I can insmod ppp_generic and ppp_async that David compiled 
for use with a larger 2.4.31 kernel.

David, you compiled a busybox for it with sha1sum as well as md5sum, but 
no which.

I will copy to fs.img (mounted) David's static zgv so I can view pnm 
files. xli does jpg and gif.  netpbm converts other formats to pnm and 
manipulates the pnm (or ppm pam pbm pgm).  Or else use the fs.img that I 
made for a 1-floppy BL3 with zgv-libc5.  I will also add netpbm for BL3 
including libnetpbm.

If I only wanted to add static programs to the 1-floppy setup, I could 
make an fs.img consisting only of those programs and mount it to a 
directory which I put on the path in /etc/profile.  But I need libnetpbm 
and there is not space for it on the floppy disk, which I want to continue 
using standalone so don't want to remove anything to make space.

If ppp works I may also add kermit and maybe links2 (both for libc5).
> > If we boot from a FD with the kernel, how much disk space would be needed
> > for a minimal BL3 without modules?
>
> Would you resize fs.img? If so, BL3 should fit in 5-7MB.


Referring to adding programs in fs.img without chrooting:

> > (I could try to add it to /etc/profile but don't know how to modify
> > David's syslinux setup.)
>
> mount /dev/fd0 /fd
> zcat /fd/initrd.gz >/initrd

Or copy to hd and gunzip it.

> mount -o loop /initrd /hd
> edit /etc/profile
>
> David

This would not work for netpbm because it also needs libnetpbm.  Can I add 
a library to the library path somehow, in /etc/profile, and have both a 
library and a binary directory in fs.img?

Sindi

Can anyone guess why we cannot get a computer to boot from a SCSI DOS 
drive?  The drive is bootable (active, sys'ed), it is the only drive in 
the computer, and CMOS is set to boot from SCSI, A, C.  It gets stuck at 
verifying DMI table or the like (just before the DOS boot part).