Tiny Core Linux
Tiny Core Base => TCB Q&A Forum => Topic started by: secdroid on January 02, 2009, 11:26:56 AM
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I have an old laptop that boots DSL 4.x from a USB stick via the DSL boot floppy. (The DSL boot floppy loaded a tiny linux with USB drivers sufficient to load and boot the DSL image from the USB stick, even though the system BIOS didn't support USB booting.)
The TC boot floppy appears to be an entirely different sort of beast: just GRUB stanzas pointing to (hd0,1).
--- How can I boot TC from USB stick when the BIOS doesn't understand USB booting?
--- If I make a USB Linux swap partition (and do mkswap on that partition), will TC automagically find it or do I need to specify it somewhere? (Minimal RAM available.)
TIA and I hope I didn't miss the answer in my searches.
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i have not seen a solution to this either. someone had a similar goal with dsl-n, the larger 2.6 kernel version of dsl: http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/dsl-n/f/viewpost/2363.html
he was able to setup dsl to do what he wanted, then simply copy the right dsl-n images (ie manual frugal install) over the dsl images. i think there are only two, bzImage and tinycore.gz in tc.
no one was able to tell him if it mattered or if his idea was not recommended, but i'm not sure the dsl-n forums ever did very well.
with tc there is the additional issue of boot scripts probably being entirely different between dsl-n and tinycore. is that an issue here? i won't make an ignorant guess in an attempt to be helpful. i wouldn't give up yet, but i don't know if there is an official answer to your question (...yet!) if there is one, i just wasted your time. if there won't be one, i would use these hints in your attempt.
edit: unless the dsl boot floppy has the same problem as the grub in dsl: http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=353.msg2211#msg2211
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i have not seen a solution to this either. someone had a similar goal with dsl-n, the larger 2.6 kernel i wouldn't give up yet, but i don't know if there is an official answer to your question (...yet!) if there is one, i just wasted your time. if there won't be one, i would use these hints in your attempt.
Thanks for the pointer. It turns out that the situation with my old laptop matches the post you cited: no HD and dead CD. Certainly worth learning from what he did.
I realize that there may be no "official" solution, near-term or ever. There are certainly higher priority issues for a young distro.
Still, I like what I see when I boot the TC CD on another machine and would like to use 2.6 Linux on the old laptop in order to take advantage of the networking improvements.
Long term, I plan to put a CF adapter inside the laptop's HD bay. I may end up using DSL via floppy/pendrive to bootstrap into installing a bootable TC on internal CF. DSL already put the machine on the network, which is a major part of the battle.
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I think that contains a syslinux boot image with the kernel and initrd added to it (and a customized syslinux.cfg)
TC's initrd is ~10M though, so it will not fit on a conventional floppy. Perhaps there is a bootloader that supports reading off usb devices...? In that case you could just change the .cfg for that to read the initrd off the usb device.
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There are solutions out there. In fact they may have matured since last I looked.
The solution that I have/use uses a Panasonic DOS/USB driver. I make a minimal DOS boot floppy with this driver.
Then using linld (or is it ldlin? ) bootloader, I can boot from floppy, see the USB pendrive as drive D:
Then using a DOS bat file load and run Tiny Core.
I will post more later.
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The solution that I have/use uses a Panasonic DOS/USB driver. I make a minimal DOS boot floppy with this driver.
Then using linld (or is it ldlin? ) bootloader, I can boot from floppy, see the USB pendrive as drive D:
Then using a DOS bat file load and run Tiny Core.
That was a big help!
Panasonic USB DOS drivers seem to be highly regarded --
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/069/1046069/yes-there-are-usb-drivers-for-dos (http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/069/1046069/yes-there-are-usb-drivers-for-dos)
http://www.computing.net/answers/dos/usb-20-connections-on-dos-/13138.html (http://www.computing.net/answers/dos/usb-20-connections-on-dos-/13138.html)
http://www.computing.net/answers/dos/usbaspisys-a-usb-driver-for-dos-/15928.html (http://www.computing.net/answers/dos/usbaspisys-a-usb-driver-for-dos-/15928.html)
... and I think you probably meant linld, loadlin's brother (which handles 2.6) --
http://troglobit.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?LinLd (http://troglobit.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?LinLd)
http://lwn.net/Articles/102210/ (http://lwn.net/Articles/102210/)
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=573508&highlight=linld&page=2 (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=573508&highlight=linld&page=2)
Now I have a project for tomorrow. 8)
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My project isn't going that well...
After trying other ways to boot, I finally formatted an "MSDOS Boot Floppy" on Windows XP, updated the config.sys, installed the two SYS files on the diskette, and DOS still can't find the test file on a 32MB FAT 16 partition on a known-good USB stick.
# cat /media/floppy/config.sys
device=USBASPI.SYS /w /v
device=DI1000DD.SYS
Here's what I get from the config.sys invocation on DOS boot ---
Starting...
ASPI for UHCI/OHCI USB mass-storage Version 1.07
Copyright(C) 2001 NOVAC Co.,Ltd.
Controller : UHCI VID8086_PID7112
Base I/O :FCE0h
Base Memory : 00000h
====================================
=== Connect the target device to USB port. ===
=== Press [ENTER] to continue ===
====================================
USBASPI : Target USB device not found.
DI1000 ASPI DISK Driver Ver 2.00
Copyright(C)2001 NOVAC Co.,Ltf.
ASPI Manager not installed.
A:\>
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Tried plugging in USB stick both before booting and after prompt, above. No difference.
All this on hardware that boots the DSL boot floppy, which then boots DSL from USB.
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Also tried using balder10 single-disk version of FreeDOS. Doesn't see USB stick and FreeDOS clears screen before typing a long prompt, thus removing all config.sys info. (Real helpful...)
Also tried pendrive linux methods --
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2007/11/21/use-a-floppy-to-boot-usb-pendrive-linux/
wget http://pendrivelinux.com/downloads/pdlfloppy.img.gz
gzip -dc pdlfloppy.img.gz | dd of=/dev/fd0
GRUB could not locate boot files on known good USB stick, so their USB driver support not adequate
Using the GRUB command line "find" command manually, I couldn't the files either
Finally found out that Ubuntu Intrepid no longer loads floppy support. Must "modprobe floppy" to use drive now. (Ubuntu keeps surprising me, frequently in less than pleasant ways.)
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I'm going to google around, but I'm pretty much out of ideas. The built-in USB support in the syslinux(?) on the DSL boot diskette appears to work with my hardware, while the DOS add-on drivers don't. I'm not sure that there's any way around that other than to boot DSL and use it to install TC on an internal CF disk or HDD.
Suggestions?
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To clarify: that boot image doesn't use usb support from the bootloader. It loads the kernel and the minirt which has usb drivers.. and then reads the rest of the data from the USB device. I guess you could make something like the above for TC if you really want to.
I haven't looked at linld before. There may be other similar projects out there though(?)
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Don't give up just yet.
Much depends on how the pendrive is setup, if I recall it requires a zip style install, not a hdd one.
I know I have three pendrives that work with DOS USB.
Let me take a look to see what is the difference.
It is not linld at this point because the NOVAC stuff has not assigned a drive letter.
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Much depends on how the pendrive is setup, if I recall it requires a zip style install, not a hdd one.
I know I have three pendrives that work with DOS USB.
Let me take a look to see what is the difference.
It is not linld at this point because the NOVAC stuff has not assigned a drive letter.
My understanding of both LinLd and LoadLin is that they are both DOS .com programs. If DOS (plus loaded drivers) can't "see" your USB stick as a disk, neither can LinLd or LoadLin.
IIRC, Zip vs. HDD style did affect syslinux, but I don't think I'm at a point where we know whether it would matter here. It would appear that the drivers loaded by the config.sys may not work against my laptop's chipset. I still can't find the drive with standard DOS commands, even with the drivers loaded.
FWIW, my pendrives are PNY Attache 512 MB and they both work well with DSL. I have not tested my Kingston DataTraveler 4 GB or Patriot 8 GB with either DSL or TC.
I could use DSL to try to determine the chipset in the laptop, but I haven't seen enough info in the driver documentation to tell me whether or not it is worth the effort.
Thank you, ^thehatsrule^, for the clarification.
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The reason you don't have an issue with the DSL boot floppies that I made are because back then the kernel (2.4) could fit on a floppy. The 2.6 kernel is much too big. When I made dsl-n is when I setup three dos usb floppies.
But back to the topic at hand.
It appears that dos usb can find a fat16 partition but nothing else.
My three pendrives that work are all fat16.
linld works and loads tiny core from a fat16 partition.
Be aware of the size limitations of using fat16. With tiny core it is not a problem.
HTH YMMV
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The reason I brought up zip vs hdd is because when I wrote those scripts, with zip I used fat16 and with hdd I used fat32.
With linld and dos usb you are not even using syslinux or ldlinux.sys.
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Re: roberts @ 1:41 --
It appears that dos usb can find a fat16 partition but nothing else.
My three pendrives that work are all fat16.
linld works and loads tiny core from a fat16 partition.
I suspected that and it was the reason why I tried the 32 MB FAT16 test partition. Unfortunately, I coudn't "see" it. I'll have to try that again. That is the key, since you succeeded with linld on FAT 16. Thanks for the tips. Time to retest...
FWIW -- Hardware (pretty vanilla) --
Processor PII 266 MHz
Host bridge Intel 440BX/ZX/DX (AGP disabled) (rev 02)
ISA bridge Intel 82371AD/EB/MB PIIX4 (rev 02)
USB Controller Intel 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 (rev 01)
...
From DSL 4.4.3 dmesg --
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 15:01:52 Oct 21 2005
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xfce0, IRQ 5
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
...
USB Mass Storage support registered
...
Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
SCSI device sda: 1001472 512-byte hdwr sectors (513 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: sda1 sda2
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I'm out of gas. Thought I'd document what I'd done.
Found USBASPI.SYS Version 2.27 Copyright ...Panasonic... 2008, filedate 10/08 at
http://panasonic.co.jp/pcc/products/drive/other/f2h_usb.html (http://panasonic.co.jp/pcc/products/drive/other/f2h_usb.html)
Added /slow switch, removed /w switch in config.sys for usbaspi.sys invocation. No improvement.
Googled for some wisdom.
From http://www.computing.net/answers/dos/usb-drivers-for-my-hp-8200-cd-rom/13628.html (http://www.computing.net/answers/dos/usb-drivers-for-my-hp-8200-cd-rom/13628.html)
Am interpreting for you:
> Controller: 00-07-2 VID=8086h PID=7112h (0000h-0000h) UHCI
> : I/O=FCE0h-FCFFh
The driver found a USB 1.1 controller (UHCI) running off an Intel chipset (8086) and it is I/O mapped (I/O=FCE0h-FCFFh).
Right for me, too.
Next we should see something like --
USB Device: HOST [00-07- VID=2 VID=8086h PID=7112h (0000h-0000h) UHCI]: |--VID=03f0h PID=0207h FS ... instead of ERROR : Target USB device not found.
From what I see, my issues are hardly unique. The Panasonic drivers, while highly regarded, were intended for their own products. In addition, my 1998 Intel chipset is pretty early. DOS support of USB is not guaranteed and I appear to be one of the unlucky ones. Lots of other folks have issues, too.
Bottom line: TC is indeed bootable from USB, via DOS floppy disk. Of course that requires working DOS support of USB on your hardware. If DOS USB works, follow roberts directions in the earlier post.
Thanks to roberts and ^thatsrule^ for the help and insights. I'll just have to find a different way to install TCB on this box.
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don't feel bad. in many years of using linux, sometimes one little project is easier if you just give up (on that one little project) for six months or a year. in that time, you may obtain different materials, or find new software tools.
it seems like a long time, with some projects a few months of waiting is a lot better than a few days or weeks of frustration.
and this is useless to you but someone said loadlin and linld are both .com files. that may be true, although i just read yesterday one is an .exe and the other is a .com. close enough?
also, i don't know what roberts has planned, but if anyone has a floppy for usb booting that is free to distribute (panasonic driver, i don't know) this may prompt an official solution in the near future. if it does, then you'll just be able to download an image and make the floppy. were you unable to use the dsl usb floppy for tinycore?
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it seems like a long time, with some projects a few months of waiting is a lot better than a few days or weeks of frustration.
and this is useless to you but someone said loadlin and linld are both .com files. that may be true, although i just read yesterday one is an .exe and the other is a .com. close enough?
I'm not frustrated. I gave it a good try and I see that others have similar problems, so I think that I've probably done all I can with this method. It's not like I am giving TC good, modern hardware to work with. ;)
I was the guilty party saying both were .com. The linld is a .com (and appears abandoned), while loadlin is a .exe.
It turns out that a friend has a junkbox full of laptop hard drives, so my next attempt will be to use DSL via floppy/flash boot to install TC on an HDD. I think that should work out fine.
I was reading the excellent tuxmachines blog this morning and came across this ingenious method of resurrecting dead laptops (DSL, but applicable to TC) -- http://jadi.net/2009/01/giving-life-back-to-an-old-laptop/ (http://jadi.net/2009/01/giving-life-back-to-an-old-laptop/)
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As far as I know grub2 is the only bootloader that even plans to have usb support.
You could try other dos usb drivers? Or, can the laptop netboot?
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This is a topic I spent alot of time on over in puppy land. See my post there:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=224734#224734
The big ugly problem turned out to be booting from a usb floppy using the integrated usb port. You can read all about the solution in my post. The rest of the thread is informative as well.
The bottom line is that I eventually was able to boot puppy linux 2.26 from a usb floppy combined with a usb stick.
The one remaining goal I have had is to be able to boot from the combination of a floppy and usb cardbus with a usb stick in it. I have come close but still have not found the right driver combo.
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I've used the wakepup2 floppy boot image successfully. It contains quite a large number of drivers that cover a broad array of hardware. Could someone please fill me in on what the correct syntax is for the linld command, what changes to isolinux.cfg are required if any and what files must be on the sda1? For puppy it looks like this:
LINLD.COM image=%drv%vmlinuz initrd=%drv%initrd.gz cl=@linld\puppy.lin
I want it to load tc from a usb stick on sda1.
Here's a link to the wakepup2 download file: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?mode=attach&id=11757
Here's a link to the panasonic dos usb support files: http://panasonic.co.jp/pcc/products/drive/cdrrw/kxlrw40an/download.html
Look in the F2H subdirectory for the drivers including ramfd.sys. The panasonic web page spells out the usage rights. However this is very old software so perhaps the rights have changed by now.
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[Direct link replaced with web page]
The panasonic web page spells out the usage rights. However this is very old software so perhaps the rights have changed by now.
The license is still there - that is not something one can assume, so the user is still bound by it.
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Really only need two files, bzImage and tinycore.gz copies onto pendrive.
linld image=e:\bzimage initrd=e:\tinycore.gz "cl=quiet vga=788"
That's it, works fine for me. Note if you use the cl directly then enclose in quotes and space separate boot options.
This is with a simple dos boot floppy, the panasonic usb device manager.
This system is using a very old Intel USB controller 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 (rev 01)
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also, i don't know what roberts has planned, but if anyone has a floppy for usb booting that is free to distribute (panasonic driver, i don't know) this may prompt an official solution in the near future. if it does, then you'll just be able to download an image and make the floppy. were you unable to use the dsl usb floppy for tinycore?
Just because software is old does not mean you can ignore its copyright. This was made for users of Panasonic products. The website that is referenced is still Copyright 2008.
I was not comfortable to distribute this when I first made a usb boot floppy for DSL-N several years ago and am still not comfortable to distribute copyrighted software.
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Just because software is old does not mean you can ignore its copyright. This was made for users of Panasonic products. The website that is referenced is still Copyright 2008.
I was not comfortable to distribute this when I first made a usb boot floppy for DSL-N several years ago and am still not comfortable to distribute copyrighted software.
oh, i wasn't implying anything of the sort! the exception to what you said is when you're given permission by the author to redistribute (usually by a readme or license file.) although this is rare in the world of freeware, and moreso in the world of proprietary drivers, it happens.
beyond that, i was hoping someone would find a free and open source solution. but only if one ever exists. heck, i won't even use opera, even though i like it. (but i won't give anyone trouble if they really want to, either.) one of the things that's always been important to me about dsl (and tc) is that they are serious enough distros in this regard. they weren't assembled by zealots, but they weren't slapped together without regard for what they were built from, either.
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The wakepup2 being distributed by the puppy forums does contain the copyrighted Panasonic driver.
It is quite easy to modify the autoexec.bat file therein to work with TC. It use seems strange to me in that you have to add a "marker", an empty, specifically named file, "usbflash" into the level-1 directory of your flash drive before the dos batch file will be useful. Many menus of boot options don't apply and would need to be changed, as well as the default, first 2 lines of the @file, which contains the "cl" boot options, should be replaced with just "quiet" and then the obvious vmlinuz with bzimage and initrd.gz with tinycore.gz.
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The wakepup2 boot floppy is as Robert said way more complicated than is needed for tc. As it turns out, here's all I needed for my dell 640 laptop:
1.) A dos boot floppy disk
2.) usbaspi.sys driver
3.) Di1000dd.sys driver (maps the usb device to a drive letter)
4.) The tc files bzimage and tinycore.gz on the usb flash drive
Here's a link to the panasonic dos usb support files: http://panasonic.co.jp/pcc/products/drive/cdrrw/kxlrw40an/download.html
Look in the F2H subdirectory for the drivers including ramfd.sys.
Create config.sys file with:
DEVICE=HIMEM.exe
FILES=30
BUFFERS=20
device=USBASPI.SYS /R /v
device=Di1000dd.SYS
LASTDRIVE=Z
Create autoexec.bat file with:
cls
echo Booting Tinycore Linux
linld image=c:\bzimage initrd=c:\tinycore.gz "cl=quiet vga=788 waitusb=5"
Things to keep in mind:
1.) My experience is that the usbaspi driver does not assign a drive letter so that's what Di1000dd.SYS does.
2.) The boot process can be slow because all usb components are scanned. There may be switch options to improve this, I'll look into this later.
3.) The usb flash drive must be formated fat16
4.) The flash drive letter assigned can be determined by the looking at the D1000dd.sys output message. It was c: for me.
5.) TC boot codes like waitusb=5 can be added as shown above.
Thanks Robert for your input on this matter. You had the key linld syntax that makes everything work.
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edit: Here are some useful switch codes for usbaspi:
/e EHCI, for enabling only USB 2.0 controller
/o OHCI, for enabling only add-on/onboard USB 1.1 controller
/u UHCI, for enabling integrated USB 1.1 controller
The /e option substantially reduced my boot time.
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It appears that the Plop Boot Manager should be able to do that - that is, chainload an usb stick with a linux bootloader.
http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html
USB boot without BIOS support (UHCI, OHCI and EHCI)
The PLoP Boot Manager is freeware.
The Program is free to use for personal and commercial use.
The Program may not be sold.
The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be appreciated but is not required.
This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software.
It's freeware, no source, but the configuration utility is gplv2.
I could not get this to work; trying on two laptops that can't boot from usb, it hangs in the other and reboots the other.
If anyone wants to try it, here's a preconfigured file to dd into a floppy, that should autoboot an usb stick:
http://rapidshare.de/files/44364812/plpbt.bin.html
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I've tried 1.4 and 2.0, I install directly from dos 6.11 ( yeah, oldschool)
None of these options work..
always getting the black screen..
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Have you tried the post here a member showed me with ext3 formatted USB?
( [removed due to policy violation]/instau.html )
The trick is making grub think your installing to first harddrive, which works out great for me.
Note, my Emachines PC and my laptop cannot boot off usb.
My Emachines boots off USB using Plop bootmanager bootfloppy (plpbt.img) which comes as either a floppy or a cd. I can use either FAT32/syslinux USB or EXT3/Grub USB and both boot.
The laptop, however, will only boot the FAT32 syslinux usb using plpbt.img plop bootfloppy.
But, If I INSTALL Plop bootmanager to MBR, using (plpbtin.img), it will then boot both of them.
To put either bootmanager(plpbt.img) or bootmanager-install(plpbtin.img) on floppy
grab a clean, formatted floppy and dd'it
"dd if=/path-to-plpbt.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=1440k'
So, if the floppy image was on my Desktop it would be-
"dd if=/home/bz/Desktop/plpbt.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=1440k"
This really works and there are other bootmanagers too.
I have tc 1.4.3 for fat32/ext3 syslinux/grub.
basically, for ext3 usb follow the tutorial above and I have instructions inside too.
Please try it and tell me if any issues? ::)
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The trick is making grub think your installing to first harddrive, which works out great for me.
An additional constraint is trying to deal with a first harddrive that is previously partitioned SOLELY with fat16 and fat32 partitions; NO free disk space at end!
How exactly can a grub boot floppy incorporate parted (or else boot and then recognize one of the first harddrive fat16/fat32 executable parted's) ??
Unsuccessful at this so far :'(
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TC's initrd is ~10M though, so it will not fit on a conventional floppy. Perhaps there is a bootloader that supports reading off usb devices...? In that case you could just change the .cfg for that to read the initrd off the usb device
Maybe GAG is the answer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAG_(boot_loader)
Good luck !
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http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html
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TC's initrd is ~10M though, so it will not fit on a conventional floppy. Perhaps there is a bootloader that supports reading off usb devices...? In that case you could just change the .cfg for that to read the initrd off the usb device.
You can use conventional floppies.
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=5241.msg31539#msg31539
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Really only need two files, bzImage and tinycore.gz copies onto pendrive.
linld image=e:\bzimage initrd=e:\tinycore.gz "cl=quiet vga=788"
That's it, works fine for me. Note if you use the cl directly then enclose in quotes and space separate boot options.
An alternative way which I would find handy especially with multiple boot parameters is to use a parameter file for cl options.
e.g. create a file called tc.par and in it list boot parameters one per line and then boot with
linld image=e:\bzimage initrd=e:\tinycore.gz vga=788 cl=@tc.par
Note: when creating such a file under Linux, it might be wise to convert it to DOS format, e.g. with 'unix2dos'.