DSL on ThinkPad 760e

Forum: USB booting
Topic: DSL on ThinkPad 760e
started by: cas194

Posted by cas194 on June 19 2008,10:30

I've run DSL before on an old desktop system, but I'm having trouble booting on this machine. (1Gb, 40Mb, No CD, no USB, no NIC, W98.)

I've added USB by way of PCMCIA and I'm trying to boot from a 256Mb USB stick. All goes well, until:

'Found USB device(s) handled by usbcore.o'
'Found USB device(s) handled by usb-storage.o
'Looking for image in /dev/*' (which flashes past too fast to read!)
'Can't find Knoppix filesystem, sorry.'

After reading around I've tried earlier DSL versions, but with the same result.

Can someone spell out for me exactly what is being sought and where exactly it should be? Any other suggestions?

CAS

Posted by curaga on June 19 2008,10:40

It cannot find your usb stick. This is usually because of slow usb flash; add "waitusb" to your boot arguments to have it wait for it. Also add "debug" to see the kernel messages, to see when your usb stick is detected and what is it called.

Posted by cas194 on June 19 2008,11:30

Quote (curaga @ June 19 2008,10:40)

I've already tried 'waitusb' and I've spent days trying every other permutation of cheatcodes that I can find. Nothing else that runs on this machine seems to have any difficulty finding and reading this USB stick.

Is there any way to halt or capture the 'debug' output before it scrolls off the screen and is lost?

CAS

Posted by curaga on June 19 2008,12:55

Sure; Scroll lock pauses it, and you can scroll with shift-PgUp and shift-PgDown

Edit: I'm not sure if the DSL initrd includes pcmcia support.. Do you see anything pcmcia-related before that?

Posted by cas194 on June 19 2008,13:17

Quote (curaga @ June 19 2008,12:55)

Sure; Scroll lock pauses it, and you can scroll with shift-PgUp and shift-PgDown

Edit: I'm not sure if the DSL initrd includes pcmcia support.. Do you see anything pcmcia-related before that?

Well, no, ScrLk doesn't work. Nor yet does any other key combination I can think of, which is why I'm asking.

Nothing PCMCIA-related is reported, so far as I can see, but

'Found USB device(s) handled by usbcore.o
Found USB Device(s) handled by usb-storage.o'

... suggests to me that the system knows it's there.

Can anyone respond to my question re. the precise type and location of the 'Knoppix filesystem' referred to in the message "Can't find Knoppix filesystem, sorry."?

CAS

Posted by curaga on June 19 2008,15:08

Well, it's the "KNOPPIX" cloop file in a directory called "KNOPPIX" on your usb stick that's most likely /dev/sda1..

Posted by curaga on June 22 2008,13:52

Did you boot by floppy or directly from the pcmcia-usb?

'cause the pcmcia support is not in the initrd, and when booting from the bootfloppy you'd also need the pcmciafloppy and the bootcode frompcmcia. This just flashed to me..