BL on CF IDE drive

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Someone is coming over in 8 hours for help installing linux to a 4GB CF
IDE drive (goes into a PCMCIA slot) on a 133MHz laptop with 48MB RAM
(does not want to pay for more RAM even if it can hold more).
The idea is to use minimal power so as to prolong battery life.
Intended use is only wireless internet, with an orinoco card (needs 2.4
kernel).  I know wireless cards use a fair amount of power to generate the
radio signal.

48MB would probably run Seamonkey or Firefox so I plan to put on
BL2 with glibc 2.3.6 update (by copying files from my laptop, to the drive
inserted into it).

Can we make a lilo boot floppy to boot to this drive?  Pcmcia modules
including ide-cs.o need to be loaded before the drive can even be
recognized.

Another option is to use a DOS boot floppy and load BL from DOS with
loadlin, but I would need help making an initfs.gz with the pcmcia
drivers.  In the next 8 hours.

I have the BL3 loop initfs.gz as a model.  Do I replace the contents of
linuxrc with instructions to load pcmcia modules?  Do I need to include
/etc/pcmcia/config and /etc/pcmcia/start as well, and run start from
linuxrc, then mount /dev/hde1 (or whatever it identifies as)?  Have mount
in /bin and /bin on the path (in linuxrc).

Is there a better initfs.gz to use as a model some place?

Can these cards even be partitioned to fat and ext2 (two partitions)?
Loop linux does not work with kernel 2.4 (read-only file system for some
reason) so we cannot use just a fat filesystem.

Other suggestions?

The puppy linux boot floppy has drivers for booting from CF drive (using
grub).  I don't understand grub, but maybe there is something useful to be
learned from it anyway.

If this works, he would have a portable linux usable in any laptop with
pcmcia and floppy drive.  We have a 16MB CF card and pcmcia adaptor that
could be used similarly.  Other live linuxes boot from USB flash drive but
we have no computers new enough to do that.

We also have an order for a laptop for typing notes at a meeting and
printing them (on a Tandy dot-matrix printer), which could be BL3 with the
'wp' (pico-based) wordprocessor.  The laptop we have has no floppy drive
so we might set it up with pcmcia modem and she can mail herself files
too.  (Is there some easy way to do file transfer between computers via
modem and phone cable instead?).  We don't have crossover ethernet cables
or serial or parallel transfer cables to spare, but could also offer her a
hub and two straight ethernet cables, but she would need to learn to run
httpd or ftpd to access the files from Windows.  Other ideas?

Sindi Keesan

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This is a CF to IDE adapter for
laptops and you can plug the 2"x1.73"x.25" (smaller than a laptop drive)
directly into the IDE, and run it without any special drivers.

(There are also adapters from CF to PCMCIA, PCI, and SATA).

It is said to run rather slowly compared to real hard drives.
You should minimize writing to the disk by 'turning off page filing' (swap
file?).

A potential way to use a laptop with missing hard drive caddy, but the
caddy  might be cheaper than the adapter plus CF card.

There are also mechanical microdrives that will plug into a CF port.

CF cards now come in up to 100GB.  Ours are 4MB, 16MB and 64MB. We could
boot BL3 from floppy and then mount the CF drive (PCMCIA) and chroot to
it.  (I set up my camera SM card to do something similar). Simpler than
initfs.gz or lilo.  But a 2.4 kernel is needed for most wireless cards.
(We have one that works with 2.2.6 and wvlan).  With a 2.4 kernel, you can
use a USB CF reader.



Sindi Keesan


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Message from Steven
===================
Sindi wrote:
>
> 133MHz laptop with 48MB RAM
>
> Intended use is only wireless internet, with an
> orinoco card (needs 2.4 kernel).  

My orinoco wireless cards do not need 2.4 kernel.  
They work fine on the 2.2.26 (using wvlan_cs).

> 48MB would probably run Seamonkey or Firefox

I would strongly advise against trying Firefox on
133MHz and 48mb RAM.  It will be very, very slow.
Horribly slow.  Don't go there.  

Opera is better.  And, of course, links2 will perform
very well on that hardware.

> Can these cards even be partitioned to fat

CF cards usually come preformatted with FAT.

> and ext2 (two partitions)?

Yes, you should be able to partition and format
a CF card like an IDE harddrive.

> The puppy linux boot floppy has drivers for booting from
> CF drive (using grub).  I don't understand grub, but maybe
> there is something useful to be learned from it anyway.

Although it should be possible to run BL3 from
a CF card, it will be tricky to get it booted.
If you are short of time, you should consider
installing puppy linux, since it is has an
option for booting from CF drive.

Cheers,
Steven

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Sindi Keesan wrote (Wed evening Sept 30)

> Message from Steven
> ===================
> Sindi wrote:
>>
>> 133MHz laptop with 48MB RAM
>>
>> Intended use is only wireless internet, with an
>> orinoco card (needs 2.4 kernel).
>
> My orinoco wireless cards do not need 2.4 kernel.
> They work fine on the 2.2.26 (using wvlan_cs).

Some orinoco cards work with wvlan and some don't.  One of my three does.
MN-520 does not.  The DELL I think does and linksys probably not.

>> 48MB would probably run Seamonkey or Firefox
>
> I would strongly advise against trying Firefox on
> 133MHz and 48mb RAM.  It will be very, very slow.
> Horribly slow.  Don't go there.

CF is said to also run slow.  I copied over my laptop files anyway,
including glibc 2.3.6 and Seamonkey and Firefox 2, and also copied Opera
8.54.  And the later Abiword that works with 2.3.6.

> Opera is better.  And, of course, links2 will perform
> very well on that hardware.

It is all there.  Even elinks and lynx.  And timidity in case the sound
can be made to work.

>> Can these cards even be partitioned to fat
>
> CF cards usually come preformatted with FAT.
>
>> and ext2 (two partitions)?
>
> Yes, you should be able to partition and format
> a CF card like an IDE harddrive.

Tried first to partition by plugging the card (in its IDE adaptor) into an
IDE (laptop) to USB adaptor, but fdisk could not handle that.
So we used Partition Magic to reformat to ext2, which worked well.
He wanted one 4GB partition.

> Although it should be possible to run BL3 from
> a CF card, it will be tricky to get it booted.
> If you are short of time, you should consider
> installing puppy linux, since it is has an
> option for booting from CF drive.

I read about that option.

It uses 50MB RAM just to boot.  The laptop came with 16MB and he added
32MB to the only slot.  It is maxed out.

>
> Cheers,
> Steven

The Armada of course had no USB port, and I did not want to try copying
files to it via parallel cable or network cable (BL3 floppy).

After formatting, I booted my laptop with BL2 on it, with David M's
USB-storage-capable 1-floppy linux, plugged the CF-IDE-USB card into my
one USB port, and mounted /dev/sda1 on /mnt and my BL2 partition on /hd.
Copied the files (it was rather slow).  Changed root password to Enter
key.  Removed my eznet login and password.  Changed fstab to point to
/dev/hda1. Made a swap file of 72MB.  Unplugged the card, plugged in my
USB hard drive (sdb1) and copied Opera 8.54 and Abiword to my hard drive.
Put back the CF-IDE-USB and unpacked Opera and installed Abiword.
Changed from Xfbdev to SVGA server and Steven's XF86Config modified for
8-bit color (which he said he had - my 120MHz Armada has it too).

He has I think an Armada 4120, which has its own boot floppy setup disk.
Mine for the 1510 (in Norwegian) did not work (I think it said it was for
the wrong model).  His would not boot from CD, and mine did not appear to
have that option (you had the choice of hard drive, or floppy plus hard
drive, depending on whether you deactivated floppy boot).

PQM boot floppy booted.  My partner checked it out and was getting
controller messages when he tried to boot from floppy disk. PQM boot
floppy booted again.  Maybe the flopppy disk has to be formatted on that
computer (floppymeter would let us know if it is running slow or fast, but
that requires getting linux to boot first).


We put back the CF-IDE into the hard drive slot and it would not boot.
'No operating system found'.

Then tried booting with David's 1-floppy syslinux and it would not boot
(stopped partway).

Tried BL3.5 (modified version with nomce, for Armada) and it stopped
partway.  LILO.

I did not try BL2 floppy boot with loadlin.

This model is said to have worked with Debian and Redhat, from normal hard
drive.


He had to take his young daughter home to bed.  We lent her our Apple
Emate (PDA/laptop cross) to play with since the computer intended for her
would not boot- it uses PCMCIA memory cards for file transfer but did not
recognize our 4MB CF card in PCMCIA adaptor.  It might need reformatting.

I suggested he put the thing into some other newer computer to see if it
would boot and come back next week if it did.

If so, I may give him my 1510 which is set up with BL on hard drive, if it
works with his CF card.  His came with Win98 working on it (originally
Win95) on hard drive.

Has anyone else on this list run BL from CF card?

Sindi

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BL would not boot because I told lilo to install to /dev/hda, which is the
IDE hard drive in my laptop, rather than to /dev/sda1, which was the CF
card in IDE adaptor in USB adaptor plugged in.

The laptop for which it is intended does not boot from BL3.5 floppy with
lilo, or David's syslinux BL, but does boot with DOS boot disk so we will
try putting a kernel and loadlin on it and booting that way.  Then see if
it will boot with lilo on hard drive.

Sindi Keesan


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The laptop with BL2 on CF card is coming by in 50 min to be donated
to us because the owner thinks BL is too complicated to learn (and other
linuxes need more than 48MB RAM to work with Firefox online).

Can I run pcmcia start and dhcp in an rc file, and/or boot directly to X
without typing root and Enter key?  If it comes up looking more like
Windows and one only needs to click on a menu item, it should be
acceptable.  It is for use by a bright 8 year old who can learn to exit X
and shut down.  We gave her an Apple eMate which can do file transfer via
PCMCIA memory card or CF card in adaptor.  Don't know what format it
produces.

I think I intimidated her father by describing how to edit XF86Config -
the CL video chip on there only does 8-bit color so can't use Xvesa, and
does not work with Xfbdev even though it does framebuffer console.  He did
manage to set up a DOS boot floppy and get into linux but was stymied by
the prompt.  He learned to delete a file.

Sindi Keesan


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Message from Steven
===================
Sindi wrote:
>
> Can I run pcmcia start and dhcp in an rc file,

Yes.

> and/or boot directly to X without typing root

That is the default for BL3.

> and Enter key?  

Yes, the ENTER key can be bypassed.  The askfirst
parameter in /etc/inittab is causing the wait for
the ENTER key.  See "man init" for other options.

Cheers,
Steven

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> The laptop with BL2 on CF card is coming by in 50 min to be donated
> to us because the owner thinks BL is too complicated to learn (and other
> linuxes need more than 48MB RAM to work with Firefox online).

Thanks for the pointers on how to boot directly to X, Steven.

This computer is now mine because someone bought a new one and their old
one is going to the 8 year old with Windows on it instead of this one.
1GB hard drive instead of the CF-IDE drive which they kept.

Compaq Armada 4120 with a separate expansion module containing CD-ROM
drive, midi port, and better speakers.  Laptops don't often come with midi
ports.  I will use this one with the midi piano as a player/recorder.
It is too slow for piano tuning software.  250MHz is borderline.

16MB onboard and a 32MB module.  (64MB is sold too).

It was not booting disk2 of BL3.5 which I fixed by running the setup
floppy (took a few reboots for it to be recognized) due to a 605 error
meaning it was set to 720K floppy instead of 1.44MB.  Which made it hard
to boot the setup floppy.  Lots of lines of errors and it could not find
disk2.tgz.  Setup auto corrected the problem and it boots BL now with no
complaints.  Dead CMOS battery?  DOS hwinfo identified it as a 720K floppy
before the problem was fixed.  Disk2 also booted very very slowly.  I am
surprised it worked at all.  Other DOS boot floppies did boot.
Armadas have their own setup floppies, specific to different series.

CL video with 1MB video RAM.  800x600 256 color max, like the Armada
1510DM (which has 512K video ram).

Works as plain VGA and not as 640x480x15 (scrambled screen progressing
eventually to wrong colors of XVESA).
Please add 800x600x4 (SVGA?) as an option in future BL.
(Did not test framebuffer X but it did not work in 1510DM though console
framebuffer did work).  SVGA server works with the 1510DM and Steven's
XF86Config and should work here too, set to 8-bit color.

It is very lightweight (battery doubles as a removable handle and floppy
drive can also be removed) for carrying to the library.
Opera is hard to read in 8-bit color even with Classic Windows buttons.

Sindi

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>
>> and/or boot directly to X without typing root
>
> That is the default for BL3.
>
>> and Enter key?
>
> Yes, the ENTER key can be bypassed.  The askfirst
> parameter in /etc/inittab is causing the wait for
> the ENTER key.  See "man init" for other options.

  > Cheers,
> Steven

I changed the tty1 line from askfirst to
tty1::respawn:-/bin/sh
Boots directly to the prompt without X.
If I type exit it exits back to the prompt (respawns).

I added to /etc/rc the lines
insmod slhc
insmod ppp_generic
insmod ppp_async
/usr/sbin/dial
(where dial is the script 'eznet up 2' - lucent modem)

It boots to the prompt and dials directly.

The two ppp lines are because I am using kernel 2.4, which requires a
later pppd.  Elinks displays a blank page with kernel 2.2.  It also
requires glibc2.2.5 (because I compiled it to do so).

If I add after the dial line in rc
elinks tiny.fastmail.fm
it is ignored.

Is it possible to load elinks automatically after dialing?  The intended
user thinks she can learn to type a 1-letter command such as 'm' for mail
to access the webmail page but I would like to completely automate this
email machine.  I will try

(sleep 10; elinks) &

to wait 10 sec after dialing before loading elinks (is this correct
format?).  Any other ideas?

elinks will be running in a console (maybe framebuffer 800x600).  It does
not look good in an rxvt in BL3.50 probably due to lack of extended ascii
and there is no need for X just to read email.

I will teach her to type Ctrl-Alt-Del to exit elinks and BL.
Maybe put big red dots on those keys.

The fastmail address is acceptable.  She has an email address already that
her brother set up but has never used it.  The computer will be on loan in
case she never uses it.

This will be ext2 BL3.50 because kernel 2.41 does not work in a loop
properly (read-only file system).  Or maybe a read-only file system would
be safer?

Sindi

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> If I add after the dial line in rc
> elinks tiny.fastmail.fm
> it is ignored.
>

If I type rc it tries again and tells me it cannot find elinks.
You need to specify the full path to the binary, same as for dialing.
(When is the path set?).

/usr/local/bin/elinks tiny.fastmail.fm

Ingredients for an email machine:
BL3

glibc 2.2.25 update (libc, ld-linux, libdl) -  1.3MB

libz  - 76K
libbz2 - 70K
(You can compile without these).

a 2.4 kernel (such as my bzimagla or bzimlafb with framebuffer or even a
smaller one without USB support)

elinks - 1.6MB with ssl support.  It can be compiled smaller.

You can access google by typing on search line g plus search term, and
define your own shortcuts.

Does anyone know how to permanently set zgv as image viewer?

Sindi

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