I guess I'll start from the beginning. I'm a Linux newbie. Setting up
this ltsp cluster is my first linux project. I first ordered a
pre-burned etherboot nic from ltsp and used it to setup a dc on a test
server running rh8 connected to my nt network. That worked great and my
boss approved rolling out a few more dc's and getting a used netfinity
5000 as my production server. I used some Via mini itx mobos and a 1-u
power supply to make a cheap ($200) thin client just add monitor ($250
flat panel) and go. I ordered three of these and was able to set up the
pxe to use etherboot (thanks to ltsp website) and thats when I read
about the Iopeners being able to do the same thing for ~$100. So I got
one to test. A version 5 not gooped and ordered v5.40a bios from Jack at
badflash and a 2.5 to 3.5 adapter. I took a spare drive and installed
rh8 hooked it up to the iopener and booted up. Here is the start of my
problems:
-The Iopener will not boot the kernal. it starts to uncompress and then
reboots. I found one or two other iopener users that posted about this
but no one has offered a solution. My workaround was to use a version of
the rh8 kernal used for booting the installation disks. It is included
on the rh8 cd called vmlinuz-2.4.18-14BOOT. I don't know how this kernal
is different, but it boots on the iopener and nothing else will. I have
tried rh6-something and several "linux on a floppy" distros also and
none of them will boot. The only reason I mention this is it may have
some effect on the other problems I am having.
Ok, so I use my workaround kernal to boot and now I have a iopener with
a hard drive attached running rh8.
-fdisk /dev/hdb and erase the qnx4 partitions on the sandisk and create
a new partition /dev/hdb1.
-mke2fs /dev/hdb1 and now I have a linux partition with ext2 fs on my
sandisk.
-Now I need to mount /dev/hdb1 so I can cpio the image file from ltsp
website to my sandisk.
-mount /dev/hdb1 /mnt ...... incorrect file system cannot mount qnx4
filesystem?
There must have been some residual identifier (on MBR?) for qnx4
file system so I used
dos fdisk/mbr to wipe the mbr and started over.
Now I have mounted the formatted sandisk so I gunzip and cpio the image
file from ltsp onto it.
-cd /mnt
-gunzip < /iopener.img.cpio.gz | cpio -ivmud
that is the command in the instructions from ltsp I included it in case
you see a glaring syntax error that may cause problems
-The first time I got this far, the block files in /dev were created. I
believe they were /dev/hdb1 and /dev/mem0. This is where I kind of get
lost in not understanding exactly why these files are here, and exactly
what they do. But they were created when I copied the image file from
ltsp.
-next I run lilo to make the sandisk bootable. I got a message like
...Fatal stop version xxx.xx expecting version xxx.xxx. I figured
something in the ltsp image had been created using a different version
than mine. That's when I tried using an old copy of rh6 to see if it's
lilo version was more compatible. I never could get rh6 to boot on the
iopener so I went back to my workaround boot kernal and started over on
the sandisk.
-this time, the cpio command produced an error on the /dev block files.
Mknod...unable to create file. Everything else was copied to the sandisk
but /dev/hdb1 and /dev/mem0 were not created.
This is where I am now. I have tried copying the block files and
creating them myself with mknod and no joy. Again, I know a lot more
about mknod and how to use it, but I still don't have a real good grasp
on why or what the block files are for. I have been unable to re-create
the circumstances where the cpio worked the first time, but even if I
could, I think I would just run into the same lilo error again.
I really don't have a good grasp of what the difference is between using
ltsp to boot the iopener vs using ltsp and etherboot to boot a normal
dc. I know that we are basically loading a kernal that will support the
usb nic so that the network booting can take place, but I understood the
step by step of the etherboot process a lot better.
ANY help would be appreciated.
Bryan
-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by: Etnus, makers of TotalView, The debugger
for complex code. Debugging C/C++ programs can leave you feeling lost and
disoriented. TotalView can help you find your way. Available on major UNIX
and Linux platforms. Try it free. www.etnus.com
_____________________________________________________________________
Ltsp-discuss mailing list. To un-subscribe, or change prefs, goto:
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ltsp-discuss
For additional LTSP help, try #ltsp channel on irc.freenode.net
