Initramfs confusion

Initramfs confusion

[Garrett Kajmowicz]

I am just begining to test out 2.6 with an eye on use by X-terminals without 
hard drives or NFS. As such I am quite enthusiastic about initramfs.  After 
much stumbling around I created a root image that I would like to test, 
compiled into kernel and created image.

I am doing testing under VMWare with 2.88 MB floppy images (for testing 
purposes), but lilo is barfing trying to write to a regular file as a raw 
device (doesn't know how to handle device 0x0700).

I cannot use a real floppy because I do not have any 2.88 MB floppies

Any suggestions?  

Thanks for the help.

Garrett Kajmowicz
gkajmowi@tbaytel.net

Re: Initramfs confusion

[Rob Landley]

On Saturday 16 August 2003 19:40, Garrett Kajmowicz wrote:
> I am just begining to test out 2.6 with an eye on use by X-terminals
> without hard drives or NFS. As such I am quite enthusiastic about
> initramfs.  After much stumbling around I created a root image that I would
> like to test, compiled into kernel and created image.
>
> I am doing testing under VMWare with 2.88 MB floppy images (for testing
> purposes), but lilo is barfing trying to write to a regular file as a raw
> device (doesn't know how to handle device 0x0700).
>
> I cannot use a real floppy because I do not have any 2.88 MB floppies
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> Thanks for the help.
>
> Garrett Kajmowicz
> gkajmowi@tbaytel.net

Here's a big cut and paste from a script of mine that does a lot of this gorp 
automatically while creating a bootable CD image.

Let me know if I missed something from the snip.  (I do remember there was 
some head scratching back when I was first figuring this out... :)

There are a number of assumptions baked into this script (I.E. earlier on an 
empty directory named sub (I.E. the sub directory) was created for use as a 
mount point, that sort of thing.  Shouldn't be too hard to figure out...)

Rob

echo === "Create a 2.88 meg floppy image (CD emulates floppy when booting)..."

rm -f floppy.img &&
dd if=/dev/zero of=floppy.img bs=512 count=5760 &&

echo === Format and mount it... &&

mke2fs -N 24 -m 0 -F floppy.img &&
tune2fs -c 0 -i 0 floppy.img &&
losetup /dev/loop7 floppy.img &&
mount /dev/loop7 sub &&

echo === Write lilo.conf for bootable CD... &&

rm -rf sub/lost+found &&
cat > sub/lilo.conf << EOF &&
boot=/dev/loop7
disk=/dev/loop7
        bios=0x00
        cylinders=80
        heads=2
        sectors=36
install=/boot.b
map=/map
backup=/dev/null
compact
geometric
image=/bzImage
        label=linux
        root=/dev/loop7
        initrd=ramdisk.img.gz
        read-write
EOF

echo === "Copy other data (kernel, ramdisk, dev, etc)..." &&

cat /boot/boot.b > sub/boot.b &&
cat /boot/vmlinuz > sub/bzImage &&
mv ramdisk.img.gz sub &&
mkdir sub/dev &&
cp -R /dev/{null,loop7} sub/dev &&
mkdir sub/tmp &&

echo === Run lilo to make image bootable.... &&

lilo -v -C lilo.conf -r sub &&
umount sub &&
losetup -d /dev/loop7

if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then exit 1; fi



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Re: Initramfs confusion

[Miles Bader]

Rob Landley <rob@landley.net> writes:
> Here's a big cut and paste from a script of mine that does a lot of
> this gorp automatically while creating a bootable CD image.

I've no idea what the original poster really wants, but your script
seems to use initrd, not initramfs (which is much nicer than initrd in
theory).

-Miles
-- 
Occam's razor split hairs so well, I bought the whole argument!

Re: Initramfs confusion

[Rob Landley]

On Thursday 21 August 2003 06:33, Miles Bader wrote:
> Rob Landley <rob@landley.net> writes:
> > Here's a big cut and paste from a script of mine that does a lot of
> > this gorp automatically while creating a bootable CD image.
>
> I've no idea what the original poster really wants, but your script
> seems to use initrd, not initramfs (which is much nicer than initrd in
> theory).

The script was done for 2.4, where initramfs wasn't an option.  (I mentioned 
it being old, and a bit crufty.)

The original poster was saying they were having trouble creating a 2.88 floppy 
image, which is most of what that script snippet does.  (The bit that 
actually creates the root ramdisk that floppy uses was earlier in the script, 
and not included in the snip.  I believe the script just had a line to copy 
the ramdisk file onto the floppy image...)

> -Miles

Rob

Re: Initramfs confusion

[H. Peter Anvin]

Followup to:  <200308161940.52579.gkajmowi@tbaytel.net>
By author:    Garrett Kajmowicz <gkajmowi@tbaytel.net>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> I am just begining to test out 2.6 with an eye on use by X-terminals without 
> hard drives or NFS. As such I am quite enthusiastic about initramfs.  After 
> much stumbling around I created a root image that I would like to test, 
> compiled into kernel and created image.
> 
> I am doing testing under VMWare with 2.88 MB floppy images (for testing 
> purposes), but lilo is barfing trying to write to a regular file as a raw 
> device (doesn't know how to handle device 0x0700).
> 
> I cannot use a real floppy because I do not have any 2.88 MB floppies
> 

I suggest using SYSLINUX instead for floppies.

	-hpa
-- 
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