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voytas
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Joined: 31 Mar 2004
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Location: Poland, Lodz
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 Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 10:13 am Post subject: Netboot Floppy (Laptop) |
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Hi folks!
I have an old laptop equipped with IBM EtherJet Cardbus NIC (tulip_cb).
I'd like to make a boot floppy so that i can boot it and mount root over NFS.
Has anybody done it yet?
There are plenty of howtos on making boot floppies, but none of them covers 2.6 kernel and pcmcia NIC
PS
i want to make it only ONE floppy not 2 or more...
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tuxmin
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Joined: 24 Apr 2004
Posts: 838
Location: Heidelberg
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 4:09 pm Post subject: |
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Kernel 2.6 has all drivers you need. Try the xircom_cb driver, this one works for my NIC.
Unlike with kernel 2.4 you need lilo or grub on your boot floppy for kernel 2.6. Refer to the docs on how to install lilo/grub on a floppy and how to pass the right bootparams. Beside this you shouldn't need anything but the kernel.
Build any drivers you need for the boot process into the kernel (and only those or it will get too large), i. e. PCMCIA drivers, NFS, networking drivers. The mods you need later should reside on the NFS share.
So there's no need to mess around with a compressed initrd and such...
Hth, Alex!!!
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voytas
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Joined: 31 Mar 2004
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Location: Poland, Lodz
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 5:40 pm Post subject: |
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yes, i know that driver for my NIC is in the kernel because I had gentoo running on that laptop 
it's really good idea (thanks) to put all needed drivers into kernel and forgeting about initrd....
I just wonder if loadlin can boot 2.6 kernels, because i do not like floppies and there is win98 installed, so i can use loadlin instead...
PS
I am starting perparinge NFS exported filesystem!
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tuxmin
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Joined: 24 Apr 2004
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Location: Heidelberg
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 5:49 pm Post subject: |
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You can still use lilo or grub to boot off the kernel image from harddisk if you have a small spare partition
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voytas
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Joined: 31 Mar 2004
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Location: Poland, Lodz
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 5:56 pm Post subject: |
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| tuxmin wrote: | | You can still use lilo or grub to boot off the kernel image from harddisk if you have a small spare partition |
that's experimental installation and i do not want to change anything...
I just want to have a floppy or zip-file to boot any pc into my server
Maybe it'll become a cluster in the future but now I am only experimenting with NFS root...
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tuxmin
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 6:04 pm Post subject: |
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OK, have fun then
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voytas
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 9:48 pm Post subject: |
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anyone has managed to configure kernel as low as 1MB ?
loadlin says it can not load kernels >1MB 
EDIT:
found patch kernel loads perfectly, but can not find any NICs...
it means I will have to go through the painfull initrd creation...
anybody wants to help ?
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tuxmin
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| Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 6:51 am Post subject: |
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You obviously missed some drivers... would you drop your .config, please...
Alex!!!
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voytas
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| Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 9:05 am Post subject: |
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| tuxmin wrote: | You obviously missed some drivers... would you drop your .config, please...
Alex!!! |
It is not the proble of the kernel but the tulip driver. It works only when compiled as a module and it is really hard to boot with NIC inserted. When I had gentoo on that machine, I had to boot without NIC and insert it later (hotplug inserted driver)
It didn't work witk pcmcia-cs either...
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tuxmin
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| Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 9:23 am Post subject: |
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You forgot to select PCCARD support in the Bus Options menu.
Alex!!!
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voytas
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| Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 9:31 am Post subject: |
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| tuxmin wrote: | You forgot to select PCCARD support in the Bus Options menu.
Alex!!! |
i did select YENTA socket to compile in the kernel, i couldn't do that without cardbus support...
i'll go with genkernel and see if it detects my hardware (it is an old P233 MMX). If it does I'll change the genkernel's initrd a little to mount root over NFS.
IMO it's the simplest way and very universal, cause I will probably work also on other systems (ot my laptop).
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voytas
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| Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 3:35 pm Post subject: |
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i tried making initrd with genkernel, but with no success at all...
anybody wants to help me by providing file list to put onto initrd ?
how does coldplug on livecd work?
PS
genkernel created kernel freezes at | Code: | | Limiting direct PCI/PCI transfers. |
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