booting from usb stick @ pcmcia usb hub
Forum: USB booting
Topic: booting from usb stick @ pcmcia usb hub
started by: dellorto
Posted by dellorto on June 08 2006,19:25
hello guys,i have a big problem and do not know where to start:
the situation:
compaq armada 7700dmt laptop, 233mhz, 96mb ram, no internal usb, no harddrive, no floppy, dsl2.4.
it HAS a cd-rom drive, pcmcia usb 2.0 controller, pcmcia network drive, usb to pen install an an usb stick.
i want to boot from that usb stick plugged into the pcmcia usb controller.
but i do not know how to boot from that usb stick.
none of my trys with the start parameters of my live cd worked, because the usb stick cannot be found because the pcmcia drivers are not yet loaded.
(when i load the live cd for testing with the pcmica drivers the stick is correctly initialized as sda1, i even did a usb pen install on it)
so which way to go?
a) are there boot parameters for the live cd to start pcmcia and then boot from the usb stick?
b) building my own boot cd
i tinkered around with the bootfloppy.img and bootfloppy-usb.img, they seem to do exactly what i want EXPECT loading the pcmcia drivers first.
a big question mark is the pcmciafloppy.img.
(i do not find anything in the wiki, in the forum, nor in google about that file) it isnt bootable and i dont know where to put the files to take advance of it.
please help!
i'm getting mad.
Posted by dellorto on June 09 2006,11:03
can it be done? vs. is it impossible?
Posted by cbagger01 on June 11 2006,04:00
It is possible.In fact, roberts has built a 2 disk pcmcia boot floppy to boot DSL from a pcmcia CDROM device.
It should be possible to build upon his work and load the USB controller driver module and also the USB mass storage driver module and then continue booting DSL.
Basically, you want to do a pcmcia bootup, but with a USB boot done at the end of the pcmcia driver load step.
Posted by dellorto on June 12 2006,11:14
ok i don't have a clue ...where can i get this 2 disk pcmcia boot floppy you talk about?
maybe a little guide how to alter them?
thanks in advance.
Posted by cbagger01 on June 12 2006,18:08
The boot floppy image files are stored at the DSL download site. You can use Rawrite32 (Search google for a Rawrite32 download site) to create the boot floppies from MSWindows.As for how to edit the minirt (that loads the drivers), see this post for more details:
< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....linuxrc >
If may be beyond your comfort level to figure this out, but you might be able to do it.
Posted by humpty on June 12 2006,20:34
i thought you didn't have a floppy drive ?
Posted by dellorto on June 13 2006,08:34
i still don't have a floppy ;)but i built bootable cd's, so i thought to take the pcmcia floppys as a sample.
i didn't had the time to tinker with that old notebook ...
but i will later.
thanks for all help!
Posted by dellorto on June 13 2006,14:06
phew i think i get myself a compact flash to ide adapter and use this as harddrive. ;)
Posted by dellorto on July 06 2006,07:50
ok,i now have a compact flash card and a cf to ide adapter ...
i bought a good cf-card, 1gb in size, 120x ...
i made an harddrive install on it and its damn fast and silent!
... very well! ... perfect! ... i thought ... but i was wrong!
because now i know that the cf-cards do wear out after an specific amount of read-write cycles ...
especially swapping will wear it out fast.
so how to reduce the read and write cycles?
the solutions i am thinking about:
a: leave the harddrive install as is and see how long it will last (hmm ... anybody eyperience with that?)
b: leave the harddrive install but swap on an usb stick
c: frugal install - i do not think this will reduce the read/write cycles, because it is mounted from the cf and not from ram.
also a frugal install is very slow!
d: toram install - much too less ram! just 96mb! nogo
e: use the cf card as booting device and run the whole system from an usb stick plugged into the pcmcia usb-adapter.
that solution will reduce the load on the cf card to a minimum, but then i am where i startet! (and i still do not have a clue how to alter the usb or pcmcia boot floppys to load both drivers)
your opinions??
thanks in advance!
Posted by humpty on July 06 2006,21:32
i vote for solution (a) cos' i've just bought a cf+ide_adapter and i want to know how they can last too!The difference is I bought the cheapest brand I could
find (TwinMOS) so I don't mind abusing it. I did a frugal install and do notice it is sluggish on loading and using uci s. It says 140x but I really don't believe it.
I am thinking about using 'noatime' in fstab, it's supposed to reduce disk access for time stamping (i think).
Posted by dellorto on July 08 2006,12:49
ok, i decided myself for solution a ...but i decided to put the /home directory on an usb stick.
so if the cf card goes up in smoke my work is save.
greetings!