[syslinux] EXTLINUX

[Ferenc Wagner]

"Collins, Cris" <cris.collins at gd-ais.com> writes:

> I am trying to boot a ramdisk on a usb stick in read-only mode using
> extlinux.

I guess you mean to boot a Linux kernel with an initrd from a read-only
usb stick.  Right?

> When the system boots all I am getting is a blinking cursor.

What messages are printed before that?  Beyond the usual BIOS stuff,
like testing memory and CPU/HDD types.

> 1) I partitioned the stick as a linux partition, formated it ext2, and
> mounted /dev/sda1 on /mnt/flash.

Did you make the partition active (that is, bootable) in fdisk?

> 2) I am running extlinux 3.86.
> 3) excuted "extlinux -i  /mnt/flash"

Did it create /mnt/flash/extlinux.sys?

> 4) created /mnt/flash/extlinux.conf
> 5) contents:
> DEFAULT linux
> prompt 1
> timeout 1200
> LABEL linux
> KERNEL vmlinuz
> APPEND initrd=initrd.img rw prompt_ramdisk=0 ramdisk_blocksize=1024
> ramdisk=2966000 root=/dev/ram0
> 6) excuted "cat mbr.bin > /dev/sda"
> 7) copied initrd.img and vmlinuz to /mnt/flash
> 8) umounted /mnt/flash

This sounds good.

> I know it sounds strange but I wanted to do the same with isolinux,

The same?!  Your usb stick is seen by your BIOS either as a HDD (in
which case the above procedure is correct), as a floppy or as a CD-ROM.
Isolinux is only applicable in the latter case, but then you mustn't
partition you usb stick.

> but get the following error:
>
> 16384 ram181(driver?)
> No filesystem could mount root, tried: romfs
> Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on
> unknown-block(1,0)

This means your kernel was loaded by some means, but I can't imagine
how.  The bootloader (extlinux or isolinux) should have printed a banner
and wait for the 120 second timeout or Enter.  Which was it?
-- 
Regards,
Feri.