Hello devel, I asked this on the linux-router list, but the devel list is a bit more active, so I figured I'd give a shot. My apologies to those who are recieving this a second time.
I am currently experimenting with some flash boot alternatives outside the Disk-On-Chip which I implemented and documented successfully and last year. I am looking to boot from a pcmcia flash card on an embedded pc (pc/104) with bios level pcmcia boot support. This is possible under windows. The flash will boot and come up as the A: drive. Oddly though, it has come up as C: if I also have an IDE disk connected, which then comes up as D: (This is not concurent with the theory I will soon introduce). I have been able to install syslinux on the flash drive, and gotten it to find the kernel, find the root.lrp package, but it fails to find itself again when it is extracting packages. Here is the fatal end it meets on the screen: --- VFS: Mounted root (minix filesystem). RAMDISK: extracting root archive: done. <--- it finds root LINUXRC: Linux Router Project - Root v3.1.0 end_request: I/O error, dev 02:00 (floppy), sector 0 end_request: I/O error, dev 02:00 (floppy), sector 0 end_request: I/O error, dev 02:00 (floppy), sector 0 FAT bread failed end_request: I/O error, dev 02:00 (floppy), sector 0 end_request: I/O error, dev 02:00 (floppy), sector 0 end_request: I/O error, dev 02:00 (floppy), sector 2 <--- why 2? MINIX-fs: unable to read superblock end_request: I/O error, dev 02:00 (floppy), sector 0 end_request: I/O error, dev 02:00 (floppy), sector 0 end_request: I/O error, dev 02:00 (floppy), sector 0 FAT bread failed LINUXRC: Could not mount the boot device. Can't install packages. Freeing unused kernel memory: 44k freed INIT: version 2.76 booting INIT: No inittab file found Enter runlevel: --- This is with a compact flash card cradled in a pcmcia adapter. I have since plugged the compact flash card into an ide adapter, with which it is recognized as hda (I have not tested booting, but going through the boot (off the non-packaging pcmcia) with flash cards connected via both pcmcia and ide, the dmesg recognized hda, which I am guessing means that there really aren't any problems. I have had these flash-ata bridges used in other applications, and they seem to emulate ide beautifully. The problem is, the pcmcia flash solution does not show any recognition of any ide devices, from which I can deduce that it is not ide that is is booting as. Because it normally appears as A: under windows, I am guessing that the bios-level pcmcia booting is emulating a floppy drive. This is also concurrent with the floppy read errors I am receiving. One of my theorys is that this may all be resolved by telling the system it has an 8MB (the size of the flash device) floppy drive. Would this work? There is no dev device for an 8MB floppy, is there? Does anyone know the major/minor codes for it? Now, how do I get it to read the packages? What do I set in syslinux.cfg as the package device? Are there any pcmcia-flash kernel patches I might need that would get this on the linux level before the packages are unpacked? I can use the ide solution, but the pcmcia solution is a much better one for my application since I have a pcmcia 802.11 card installed, and a free pcmcia bay. Booting of pcmcia would make my system incredibly compact. Has any gotten pcmcia-flash booting to work? Can any point me in the direction of any uncompleted work? I will gladly undertake this project, and document it and release what I can. This is something that I would really like to get working, and if any can point me in the direction of something to build from, it would greatly help me. Of course, if somebody know how to get this working, please share =) cheers /johan ugander a long-dormant leaf developer getting back on the scene --- . . . .. ...________________S I G. name: Johan Ugander school: AEDT2002 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] icq: 4330752 . . . .. ..._____________________. _______________________________________________ Leaf-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/leaf-devel
