Baslinux mailing list

[Christof Lange <cce.zizkov AT volny.cz>]

Hi list, 

I have just uploaded the my new USBTOOLS.ZIP containing these 
files: 

    BOOT     BAT           355 
    2_4_31             632 543 (Sindi's l8 kernel)
    USBTOOLS GZ      3 416 648 (my 8 MB RAM disk)
    README   TXT         7 122 
    LOADLIN  EXE        32 225 

It can be downloaded at: 

    http://www.volny.cz/cce/linux/usbtools.zip

Here is the readme.txt: 


------------ README.TXT --------------------------------


What is USBTOOLS? 
=================

The USBTOOLS.ZIP package bundles a customized 2.4.31 kernel compiled
by Sindi Keesan and a modified RAM disk version of Steven Darnold's
BasicLinux 2.1.

The basic idea is to get better support for USB storage devices and 
CD-burner on older hardware or systems running operating systems of 
the pre-USB era (DOS, Windows9x, Linux 2.2). 

Although today even for DOS there are USB drivers, USB devices
cannot be changed without rebooting. For Windows9x it is not always
easy to find the correct drivers. The Linux 2.2.x kernels which form
the basis of the BasicLinux distribution entirely lack USB support.
Also CD-burning is very restricted in DOS, so that even on a
computer with DOS and BasicLinux it is a quite complicated procedure
to backup flash memory devices to CD- ROM.

USBTOOLS.ZIP contains programs and scripts that can hopefully help
to clean up your hard disks and memory devices, to do fast backups
and to use multiple storage devices to move large amount of data.
Probably it supports also a number of digital cameras.

Installing USBTOOLS
===================

You no do not need to install usbtools permanently on your system,
as it runs in a 8 MB RAM disk, that can be started from a
DOS/Windows hard disk partition or from a CD with the DOS utility
loadlin.exe.

a) If you want to start usbtools from your hard disk unpack the
files from usbtools.zip to a separate directory. You will get into
Linux, when you run the command 'boot' from this directory. 

b) If you have problems starting Linux that way, they are probably
caused by other programs running in the background. On a DOS/W98
system an easy alternative is starting Linux directly from the
config.sys file with the line shell=loadlin.exe 2_4_31 root=/dev/ram
rw initrd=usbtools.gz hdc=ide-scsi Make sure that loadlin.exe,
2_4_31, and usbtools.gz are in the root directory or add their paths,
e.g.

  shell=c:\linux\loadlin.exe c:\linux\2_4_31 root=/dev/ram rw 
    initrd=c:\linux\usbtools.gz hdc=ide-scsi 

c) If the files loadlin.exe, 2_4_31, and usbtools.gz and boot.bat
reside on a CD the procedure is basically the same. On a system that
is not compatible with DOS it may be necessary to boot into DOS with
the help of another floppy disk or CD.

d) If you want to run the USB and CD burning utilities within your
existing BasicLinux or Slackware installation, you can use the
Midnight commander to copy the programs and scripts over to your hard
disk (do not forget the /dev directory). Then use the 2.4.31 kernel
instead of your older kernels to boot.


Running USBTOOLS
================

Basic functions

After a successful boot sequence you will see a welcome page with
the most important commands and aliases. Commands work on the command
line and in the file manager as well. Aliases - the shortcuts to
mount and unmount various devices - work only on the command line.
You log into the system with 'root'. With 'exit' or 'logout' you get
back to the opening screen.

There are three virtual consoles. You can change between them with
Alt+F1, Alt+F2 and Alt+F3. It could be useful to use one console for
mounting and unmounting or for the CD burning commands and another
one for the file manager Midnight Commander. The program zgv can be
useful in order to browse photographs or graphic files.

Floppy disks and hard disk partitions (hda1, hda2, hda3) can be
mounted with the shortcuts a:, c:, d:, e: and unmounted with :a, :c,
:d, :e. Their mountpoints are /A, /C, /D, /E in the root directory.
Before a device is mounted the mount point is created, after
unmounting it will be removed.

USB storage devices

USB storage devices are recognized by the system immediately when
they are plugged in. The order of plugging them in decides on their
mount point: /USB-A, /USB-B, /USB-C, etc. When you type the command
usbmount or use the shortcut u:, all USB devices which are plugged
in at that moment will be mounted. When you type :u or usbumount all
attached USB devices will be unmounted and their mount points will
be removed. If you want to unmount them selectively you can use :u
A, :u B, etc. In that case only the device at the mount point /USB-A,
/USB-B, etc. will be unmounted. You should unmount USB devices
before you remove them. When you plug in a new device a new mount
point will be assigned to it. If you attach the former one for a
second time, it will get its former mount point.

There is only one problem with all this. It ends in the moment when
a CD drive is initialized. From that time on you will be able to
mount and unmount only those USB devices which had already been
attached before. So if you are going to use USBTOOLS together with a
CD burner, you should plug in all USB devices which you intend to
use during a session already once at the very beginning. Then you
can remove them and initialize the CD-ROM drive (see below). Later
they will be recognized again and get a mount point.

CD-ROM reading and writing

In order to burn CDs on a ATAPI/IDE drive (typically recognized as by
the system /dev/hdc), the CD-ROM has to be accessed through the same
SCSI driver that is used by the USB devices. This is the reason why
the Linux kernel is booted with the option 'hdc=ide-scsi' (see
above). When you boot into the USBTOOL RAM disk, the CD read and
write functions are not yet activated in order to give you the chance
to first plug in all USB devices which will be needed during the
starting session first (see previous paragraph).

The CD-ROM drive must first be activated with the command 'cdinit',
before CDs can be mounted. From then on, the shortcut r: mounts a CD
to the mount point /R, whereas :r unounts the disk and removes the
directory /R.

The command 'cdhelp' lists a couple of scripts facilitating the most
frequent functions for burning of data CDs. If you are interested in
burning and copying audio CDs, you can find the appropriate commands
in /bin/cdtutor. From this it would not be too difficult to write
some more scripts on your own.

If you do not have a CD burner, but only need to mount an ordinary
CD- ROM drive, you may want to remove the option 'hdc=ide-scsi' from
the loadlin.exe command (edit config.sys or boot.bat). Without this
option you do need not run 'cdinit' at all. The r: and :r shortcuts
work from the beginning, as the CD drive can be mounted from
/dev/hdc.


Troubleshooting
===============

- If your hard disk partitions are on different destinations, you can 
  change the alias definitions in /root/.profile The changes come into
  effect after you exit the virtual console and login again. 

- If you have problems with the graphic viewer zgv try to edit the 
  file  /etc/vga/libvga.config 


Technical support
=================
 
General information on BasicLinux can be found on the website and on 
the Baslinux mailing list: 

  http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/baslinux/

Questions concerning the usbtools package can be asked (may be some 
of them even answered) here: 

  cce.zizkov AT volny.cz

Christof Lange

---------------------------------------------------

Many thanks to Sindi and David for compiling and answering to my
questions. If you find this tool useful and have any suggestions how
to make it a bit more generic, I will be happy to include such
improvements in another version.

Christof

________________________________________________________________

Ceskobratrska cirkev evangelicka - Betlemska kaple na Zizkove
Prokopova 4/216, 130 00 Praha  3, Czech Republic
Tel. (+420) 222 78 06 73 / 222 78 20 02 / 603 18 87 53
http://www.volny.cz/cce.zizkov