Re: Call for a README
On Mon, Jan 24, 2000 at 08:32:05PM +, Alistair Riddoch wrote: Good idea, when it is available I will translate into Spanish, Thanks for the offer. I have put the modified version of the files on a new documentation page at http://www.elks.ecs.soton.ac.uk/doc/. All right. If anybody wants to do it, I will translate them into french, probably this weekend. Arnaud.
Re: Re: Call for a README
A french translation sounds great! On Mon, Jan 24, 2000 at 08:32:05PM +, Alistair Riddoch wrote: Good idea, when it is available I will translate into Spanish, Thanks for the offer. I have put the modified version of the files on a new documentation page at http://www.elks.ecs.soton.ac.uk/doc/. All right. If anybody wants to do it, I will translate them into french, probably this weekend. Arnaud. *** Free voicemail and email, by phone or Web! Free phone calls too! Get it today at http://www.myTalk.com ***
Re: Call for a README
On Mon, Jan 24, 2000 at 07:56:29PM +0100, Juanjo Marin wrote: Al, Good idea, when it is available I will translate into Spanish, Thanks for the offer. I have put the modified version of the files on a new documentation page at http://www.elks.ecs.soton.ac.uk/doc/. Matt's file included the clearest instructions on installing, so I corrected the technical errors and put it up as INSTALL, and Phillip's contained the best overall view, and compiling the kernel documentation, though it does need some work. /usr/src is a much more conventional place to keep source code than /ELKS/, and this what the Makefiles expect you to have done. It may be worth noting that RedHat 6.1 comes with bcc installed and can be used to build the elks kernel without installing Dev86. I am not sure whether it will build binaries correctly as it may not be built against the right syscall.dat file. I also corrected the URLs. http://www.elks.ecs.soton.ac.uk/ is the advertised homepage URL. The other version, which I won't put here because I want to stop it, will still work, but should not be spread. Thanks to both of you for contributing the docs. Also on the page is some stuff I wrote when I was learning ELKS. Hope it is useful to someone. Al
Re: Call for a README
Thanks for getting this started. I've had images.zip for quite a while, now, and didn't know what to do with the unzipped files. It is also nice to know that the Comb has nothing to do with my hair! :) I knew just enough Linux (from my unsuccessful installs) that Phill's version increased my knowledge. And Matt had an excellent DOS instruction set, too. Bruce -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Saturday, January 22, 2000 10:11 AM Subject: RE: Call for a README Here's a README I've attached the text file too in case you mail program mangles it. What do you think? (1) Introduction (2) Trying out ELKS using the disk images (3) Compiling your own kernel (1) Introduction Hello and welcome to the exciting world of Linux-8086, ELKS, or the Embeddable Linux Kernel Subset! This is a project which will eventually produce a linux like OS for the 8086(186,286) as well as for the psion series of processors. But as you have this file you probably already know that so let's get down to buisness. (2) Trying out Elks using the images So you want to give ELKS a try but you don't want all the fuss and bother of compiling the kernel and the tools yourself. No problem. All you need to do is grab the images.zip file from the download section of http://www.elks.ecs.soton.ac.uk/cgi-bin/ELKS and save it to its own directory. We'll assume ./ELKS/ is the directory. Then do the following cd ./ELKS unzip images.zip ls Now you should have three files boot, root, and comb. The file called "boot" contains the kernel and is used with "root", which contains the actual applications, for systems with low capacity diskette drives. The file "comb" is a combination of the two disk images and can be used on systems with diskette drives with a capacity of 720 kilobytes and higher. We'll make all three just to show how it's done. We'll assume that all files are being written to "/dev/fd0" but you may have to figure out which is the approproate drive on your system. You should still be in the ./ELKS/ directory. Put a diskette labeld boot in the drive and do the following and remember all data on the diskettes will be lost. dd if=./boot of=/dev/fd0 /* Change diskettes. Use one labled root*/ dd if=./root of=/dev/fd0 /* Change Diskettes. Use one labled comb */ dd if=./comb of=/dev/fd0 That's it you should now have three diskettes that you can use to boot your ELKS system. If you using the boot and root disks you'll have to use boot first and insert root when asked. If you can use the comb disk then you'll only have to use that disk. (3) Compiling your own kernel Compiling your own kernel is a bit more involved but we'll get through it. First your going to need a few files from the download section of http://www.elks.ecs.soton.ac.uk/cgi-bin/ELKS elks-x.x.xx.tar.gz images.zip elkscmd-.tar.gz Dev86bin-x.xx.x.tar.gz Ok so you've got the files personnally I like to keep them in /ELKS/ so that's what I'll assume your doing. So cd to /ELKS and let's get started The first thing we need to do is install the Developement tools. cp Dev86bin-x.x.xx.tar.gz / cd / tar xvzf Dev86bin-x.x.xx.tar.gz rm Dev86bin-x.x.xx.tar.gz And you should have the 8086 developement tools installed. Next we need to cd back to /ELKS/ and untar the elks kernel sources. So cd /ELKS tar xvzf elks-x.x.xx.tar.gz cd ./elks Now that we're in the source directory we can start setting up the kernel the firt thing that needs to be done is make config You'll be asked a few questions about how you want the kernel set up, for now we'll accept the defaults and just keep hitting enter until we get to the end then make You'll see a lot of warnings go by for a few minutes, and then we'll assume a perfect compile. So we'll now have an diskette image file with our new kernel on it. We'll assume we built for the 8086. The image is a little buried so we'll have to dig into the source tree to find it cd /ELKS/elks/arch/i86/ ls If the compile was successful you'll have an "Image" file here and you'll have to get it onto a diskette I'll assume "/dev/fd0" dd if=./Image of=/dev/fd0 This will be your boot disk, but you'll need a root disk too so cd /ELKS/ unzip images,zip dd if=./root of=/dev/fd0 After that you should be able to use the boot and root disks and wat
Re: Call for a README
Thanks to everyone who has submitted for this. Both major contributions have some good strong points, and both have there mistakes. I will put together a pair of files from the best of the two, and post them back for approval. Al
RE: Call for a README
Here's a README I've attached the text file too in case you mail program mangles it. What do you think? (1) Introduction (2) Trying out ELKS using the disk images (3) Compiling your own kernel (1) Introduction Hello and welcome to the exciting world of Linux-8086, ELKS, or the Embeddable Linux Kernel Subset! This is a project which will eventually produce a linux like OS for the 8086(186,286) as well as for the psion series of processors. But as you have this file you probably already know that so let's get down to buisness. (2) Trying out Elks using the images So you want to give ELKS a try but you don't want all the fuss and bother of compiling the kernel and the tools yourself. No problem. All you need to do is grab the images.zip file from the download section of http://www.elks.ecs.soton.ac.uk/cgi-bin/ELKS and save it to its own directory. We'll assume ./ELKS/ is the directory. Then do the following cd ./ELKS unzip images.zip ls Now you should have three files boot, root, and comb. The file called "boot" contains the kernel and is used with "root", which contains the actual applications, for systems with low capacity diskette drives. The file "comb" is a combination of the two disk images and can be used on systems with diskette drives with a capacity of 720 kilobytes and higher. We'll make all three just to show how it's done. We'll assume that all files are being written to "/dev/fd0" but you may have to figure out which is the approproate drive on your system. You should still be in the ./ELKS/ directory. Put a diskette labeld boot in the drive and do the following and remember all data on the diskettes will be lost. dd if=./boot of=/dev/fd0 /* Change diskettes. Use one labled root*/ dd if=./root of=/dev/fd0 /* Change Diskettes. Use one labled comb */ dd if=./comb of=/dev/fd0 That's it you should now have three diskettes that you can use to boot your ELKS system. If you using the boot and root disks you'll have to use boot first and insert root when asked. If you can use the comb disk then you'll only have to use that disk. (3) Compiling your own kernel Compiling your own kernel is a bit more involved but we'll get through it. First your going to need a few files from the download section of http://www.elks.ecs.soton.ac.uk/cgi-bin/ELKS elks-x.x.xx.tar.gz images.zip elkscmd-.tar.gz Dev86bin-x.xx.x.tar.gz Ok so you've got the files personnally I like to keep them in /ELKS/ so that's what I'll assume your doing. So cd to /ELKS and let's get started The first thing we need to do is install the Developement tools. cp Dev86bin-x.x.xx.tar.gz / cd / tar xvzf Dev86bin-x.x.xx.tar.gz rm Dev86bin-x.x.xx.tar.gz And you should have the 8086 developement tools installed. Next we need to cd back to /ELKS/ and untar the elks kernel sources. So cd /ELKS tar xvzf elks-x.x.xx.tar.gz cd ./elks Now that we're in the source directory we can start setting up the kernel the firt thing that needs to be done is make config You'll be asked a few questions about how you want the kernel set up, for now we'll accept the defaults and just keep hitting enter until we get to the end then make You'll see a lot of warnings go by for a few minutes, and then we'll assume a perfect compile. So we'll now have an diskette image file with our new kernel on it. We'll assume we built for the 8086. The image is a little buried so we'll have to dig into the source tree to find it cd /ELKS/elks/arch/i86/ ls If the compile was successful you'll have an "Image" file here and you'll have to get it onto a diskette I'll assume "/dev/fd0" dd if=./Image of=/dev/fd0 This will be your boot disk, but you'll need a root disk too so cd /ELKS/ unzip images,zip dd if=./root of=/dev/fd0 After that you should be able to use the boot and root disks and watch ELKS work its linux like magic on your machine. Have fun! - If you have any suggestions for this readme send your comments to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED] --Phillip J Rhoades *** Free voicemail and email, by phone or Web! Free phone calls too! Get it today at http://www.myTalk.com ***
Re: Call for a README file
How about this? I read that slashdot article someone posted the link to. I'm one of those types who doesn't know a whole lot about programming, but is learning, and is certainly interested in learning, and thus might be able to contribute in the documentation area. I whipped up this real quick. Its hardly complete, but its a start. Take a look at it and tell me what you think. Things it still needs: 1) an explanation of the benefits/problems with using the combination boot/root disk instead of separate disks. 2) where to find things like rawrite.exe and pkz204g.exe 3) a more complete section on installing under linux. If you can't read the file here, I've also included it as an attachment. I'm not used to this cruddy yahoo email setup. -matt balaun [EMAIL PROTECTED] P.S. - Yeah, it probably won't look very clean this way, I recommend looking at it as an attachment instead. Sorry. I'll have to work on that. --- ELKS - INSTALL.TXT - v0.0.1 - 21 January 2000 Original Author - Matt Balaun - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Here are basic instructions on installing ELKS, the Embeddable Linux Kernel Subset, onto one or more floppy disks for use on your PC. Table of Contents: == 1. Introduction 2. Installation - DOS/Win3.x/Win9x/WinNT users 3. Installation - Linux users 4. Credits If you have any questions about this document, please email the author, Matt Balaun, at [EMAIL PROTECTED], or post your question to the linux-8086 discussion list. Information on this list is available at: http://www.elks.ecs.soton.ac.uk/ 1. Introduction These are 1.44 MB disk images for ELKS, the Embeddable Linux Kernel Subset, as contained in the file IMAGES.ZIP and as of ELKS version 0.0.82: boot - disk image used in creating the boot disk root - disk image used in creating the root disk comb - disk image used in creating a combination boot and root disk As of right now, the author of this document does not fully understand the advantages and disadvantages of making separate boot and root disks versus making a combination boot and root disk. A future version of this document will contain a brief explanation of that. For now, the author recommends doing whatever works for your system. :) 2. Installation - Dos/Win3.x/9x/NT/2000 users For those of you working on a DOS-based system (or a system where you can access a DOS prompt, such as Win9x/NT), you will need the following to create your set of ELKS disks: IMAGES.ZIP (which presumably you've already downloaded if you're reading this document) RAWRITE.EXE (a DOS-based tool used to write disk images onto your floppies) Two 1.44 HD floppy disks (or just one if you want to make the combination boot and root disk) If you are missing IMAGES.ZIP, you can get it from: ftp://linux.mit.edu/pub/ELKS/ If you are missing RAWRITE.EXE, you can get it from: ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/linux/slackware-7.0/bootdsks.144/ *NOTE: This probably isn't the best place to get RAWRITE from, but its the first one that came to mind. Someone suggest a better place, please? If you are missing two 1.44 HD floppy disks, buy them from just about any computer or office supply store on the planet. Once you have all these items, you are ready to start making your ELKS disk set. First, unzip IMAGES.ZIP into a directory on your hard drive. If you don't know how to do this, or if you haven't the tools to do this, download PKZ204G.EXE from (where the heck can a guy get PKZ204G.EXE from these days, anyway?), install it, and read the documentation included with it. Example: C:\ md elks C:\ copy images.zip c:\elks\ C:\ cd elks C:\ELKS pkunzip images.zip Second, put a copy of RAWRITE.EXE to that same directory Example: C:\ELKS\ cd .. C:\ copy rawrite.exe c:\elks\ C:\ cd elks Third, decide whether you want to make separate boot and root disks or just the combination boot/root disk. Then make them. The format for RAWRITE.EXE is RAWRITE [image name] [drive letter]. You can also just type RAWRITE, and the program will prompt you for the information it needs. Example (for separate boot and root disks): (put a 1.44 HD floppy into drive A:) C:\ELKS\ rawrite boot a: (wait for rawrite to finish writing to drive A:) (remove 1.44 HD floppy from drive A:, label as "ELKS boot" or some other logical name) (put a new 1.44 HD floppy into drive A:) C:\ELKS\ rawrite root a: (wait for rawrite to finish writing to drive A:) (remove 1.44 HD floppy from drive A:, label as "ELKS root" or some other logical name) (congratulate yourself on
Re: Call for a README file
On Fri, Jan 21, 2000 at 01:19:26PM -0800, iwishihadda realname wrote: How about this? I read that slashdot article someone posted the link to. I'm one of those types who doesn't know a whole lot about programming, but is learning, and is certainly interested in learning, and thus might be able to contribute in the documentation area. I whipped up this real quick. Its hardly complete, but its a start. Take a look at it and tell me what you think. I have read through the file and it is exactly what I was looking for in style, if not in technical detail. I will go through and and correct the details, and then post it back for further comments. Writing clear documentation that novices can understand has never been my strong point. Thanks very much for this valued contribution. Al
Re: Call for a README file
On Fri, 21 Jan 2000, Alistair Riddoch wrote: Anyone who wants to contribute to the project, but can't code, here is your chance. Don't worry about discussing in depth what the files should contain. I was thinking this could also be a good place for an (almost) howto. If people try to install, then report on the methods they found to work, and any problems they had. Infact we could almost compile a list of systems that are known to work, eg. V30 with 2 MFM drives and a single 720k floppy, etc. with contact details for someone who has done it, willing to answer any questions. Any thoughts? Davey
RE: Call for a README
: If you have any suggestions for this readme send your comments to : [EMAIL PROTECTED] : or : [EMAIL PROTECTED] : : --Phillip J Rhoades Fantastic job! You're definitely hired for a writing position!! Greg
Re: RE: Call for a README (LEEME, the Spanish translation)
Here you are the Spanish translation of README, called LEEME Bye, Juanjo At 18:41 21/01/00 -0800, you wrote: : If you have any suggestions for this readme send your comments to : [EMAIL PROTECTED] : or : [EMAIL PROTECTED] : : --Phillip J Rhoades Fantastic job! You're definitely hired for a writing position!! Greg Thanks I've attached a copy with some correction to punctuation, spelling, etcetera. Anything else I can help with? *** Free voicemail and email, by phone or Web! Free phone calls too! Get it today at http://www.myTalk.com *** Attachment Converted: "c:\util\win\telefon\eudora.jj\attach\README.elks" LEEME
RE: Call for a README file - ELKSibo
I've already written a basic 'install' procedure for the Psion which is on my web site. This covers how to program a SSD (given the image) and how to install the Kernel. I don't feel I know enough about the PC stuff, but am happy to contribute more on the Psion specific stuff. Simon Wood Hardware Engineer Pace Micro Technology plc Victoria Road, Saltaire, Shipley West Yorkshire, BD18 3LF Tel : +44(0)1274 532000 Fax: +44(0)1274 532029 This E-Mail and any attachments hereto are strictly confidential and intended solely for the addressee. If you are not the intended addressee please notify the sender by return and delete the message. You must not disclose, forward or copy this E-mail or attachments to any third party without the prior consent of the sender.
Re: Call for a README file
: So I decided I need to put a README and an INSTALL file with the distribution : in future releases, but that I am not really qualified to write them. Al, Not to disagree with you, but I think that it's important that the actually useful Real Technical Information (tm) be included in an INSTALL. This information should state exactly what a user should do to get from images.zip to a running ELKS installation. Brief technical descriptions of what root, comb etc are are necessary, IMHO, and you're the perfect person to write that. Having said that, then, someone less technical might massage the message to help users less technical... My $.02 Greg
