[syslinux] Fw: syslinux with flash discs?

[Jeff Mock]

Here are a couple of hints about booting from IDE flash devices.

I don't know anything about Feiya but you can use Compact Flash
cards (CF) as an IDE disk drive.  The CF interface has an IDE
mode of operation and it's just a matter of getting the wires from
the IDE conenctor to the compact flash card.  You can get an adapter
from a place like Siliconkit (www.siliconkit.com) to use any CF
card as an IDE device on a PC motherboard.  The CF card becomes
/dev/hda and works just like a disk drive. In this mode you cannot
hot-plug the compact flash card.  You have to power-cycle the box
if you want to remove the flash disk.

I have not used syslinux on an IDE CF memory device, but it should
work fine, it appears to the system just like an IDE disk drive.

I have used both LILO and Grub on IDE CF cards with good success.

For an embedded project I was working on that booted a motherboard
using a CF card I wanted some boot loader features that I couldn't
find elsewhere.  I wanted to boot from a cramfs compressed filesystem
stored on the compact flash card and I wanted the bootloader to set a
VESA graphics mode and put up a nice splash screen while the kernel
was booting.  So, I wrote my own boot loader that I think is
complimentary to syslinus, lilo, and the rest.  I haven't really
released it yet, but you are welcome to give it a try, hopefully it
will be self-explanatory to modify for your purposes.  "jlo" means
"jeff's loader":

    http://www.mock.com/jlo/jlo-0.1.2.tar.gz

jeff



At 11:04 AM 1/16/2003 -0800, David E. Weekly wrote:
>Johan accidentally wrote me personally with the following email, which I
>thought would be better intended for the syslinux list. Replies to *Johan*
>please. :)
>
>-d
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Johan Winäs" <johan.winas at isg.se>
>To: <david at weekly.org>
>Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 2:33 AM
>Subject: syslinux with flash discs?
>
>
> > Hi..
> >
> > Just tried out syslinux and isolinux. Isolinux works great, just perfect.
> > But with syslinux I have some problems, it wont boot.
> >
> > The media I'm using is a IDE flash disc,
> > Company called Feiya makes them, it,s 128Mb large and fits directly into
>the
> > IDE slot on the mainboard.
> >
> > >From my tests, the only filmsystem that will run on these are msdos, wich
>is
> > wy I have used ms-dos and loadlin before.
> > What happens is that syslinux displays it,s boot prompt, and then loads
>the
> > kernel.
> > Says : Uncompressing Linux... Ok, booting the kernel.
> > And the system hangs, not even "num-lock" works on the keyboard.
> > I have tried it with and without initrd, same result.
> > -s option dosent make any difference.
> >
> > I got one of the machines to boot once.
> > I copied the kernel to the disc once again, with a new name so I have two
> > kernels on the dos disc. I added that kernel to the syslinux.cfg, and
>tried
> > that one, and it worked.
> > I tried this again on the second flash disc I need this one, dident work.
> > So it seams to be some kind of read error to me, but it manage to
>uncompress
> > the kernel, so thats strange.
> >
> > I have two computers that I test on.
> > first: A industrial PC. Lanner IAC-688 cpu card with I815 chipset and a
> > passive backplane.
> > a celeron 800 cpu with 256Mb ram.
> > second: a Aopen AX6BCpro mainboard with a celeron 366 cpu and 196Mb ram
> >
> > I use Isolinux on both machines, with the same kernel and initrd image,
>and
> > that works just fine.
> >
> > My use for this is in a projekt.
> > First project where I use Isoliunx now, is a harddisc recorder for mpeg2
> > video. It boots from the CD and loads into ram, and then keeps the config
> > mirrored over the harddisc that keep the video storage.
> > Second project: a system that does video analyzing in industrial
> > environment, where I need a flash disc to boot from, wich load the kernel
> > and initrd to ram. And then keep the /etc catalog in an image file on the
> > flash disc itself.
> > I dont know if this qualify for a "distribution" but it,s more an
> > installation. Havent installed any of the systemt, but when I do, I realy
> > plan to send you some kind of donation, this has realy helped me along
>with
> > the Isolinux, and maybe even the syslinux.
> >
> > /Johan
> >
>
>
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