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Author Topic: filesystems support  (Read 7658 times)

Offline candinico

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filesystems support
« on: July 18, 2013, 01:17:25 AM »
Hi,
how to mount tinycore in a filesystem not supported from the official iso ? e.g it's possible to flash a new installation with jffs2 or ZFS in a hard drive

Thanks in advance

Nico
« Last Edit: July 18, 2013, 06:42:54 AM by candinico »
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Offline theYinYeti

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Re: filesystems support
« Reply #1 on: July 18, 2013, 02:29:21 AM »
For this purpose, you need to change TinyCore's ramfs. See here for an example:
http://yeti.selfip.net/cms/index.php/post/2013/05/12/NTFS-and-modular-boot-for-TinyCore-Linux

This example is for adding support for booting TinyCore on NTFS (NTFS-3G).

Online Juanito

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Re: filesystems support
« Reply #2 on: July 18, 2013, 02:33:52 AM »
If you load the filesystems-3.0.21-tinycore extension, it contains jffs2, but not zfs.

As a general comment, you can use the "provides" function in the apps browser gui to search the extension repo.

Offline theYinYeti

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Re: filesystems support
« Reply #3 on: July 18, 2013, 02:40:58 AM »
Also, for ZFS, you'll have to compile the ZFS kernel module for the exact version of TinyCore's kernel that you use, if you choose the kernel module solution. And you should: this version of ZFS is better than the Fuse-based one.
For documentation on how to compile the kernel module, you may want to look at Arch's Wiki.

Offline tinypoodle

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Re: filesystems support
« Reply #4 on: July 18, 2013, 03:34:01 AM »
Also note that if you mean to boot from zfs or jffs2, not every common bootloader would just work out of the box.
"Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster." Niklaus Wirth - A Plea for Lean Software (1995)

Offline theYinYeti

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Re: filesystems support
« Reply #5 on: July 18, 2013, 03:58:40 AM »
Upon further thinking, in order to boot from a ZFS partition, I think the ZFS "module" would have to be actually included into TinyCore's kernel, not be left as a separate module.
And tinypoodle is right: booting from "unusual" filesystems is not a given. The best bet would be Grub2, I guess; that's the bootloader I use, but I never looked into this topic…

[edit: Grub2 version 2.0 and up indeed have support for ZFS; apparently not JFFS2, though.]
« Last Edit: July 18, 2013, 04:07:19 AM by theYinYeti »

Offline bmarkus

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Re: filesystems support
« Reply #6 on: July 18, 2013, 04:01:59 AM »
You need a remastered version with the necessary fs kernel driver added.
Béla
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Offline candinico

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Re: filesystems support
« Reply #7 on: July 18, 2013, 06:41:08 AM »
in this moment , my focus is on a new installation with a jffs2 filesystem. The OS need to run ( and operate ) in a SD card or a DOM module.
« Last Edit: July 18, 2013, 06:44:20 AM by candinico »
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Online Juanito

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Re: filesystems support
« Reply #8 on: July 18, 2013, 08:10:13 AM »
I think you'd need to remaster tinycore to do that.

Offline tinypoodle

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Re: filesystems support
« Reply #9 on: July 18, 2013, 08:15:10 AM »
The OS always operates in rootfs (tmpfs), while extensions could optionally be mounted from a file system residing on persistent storage.

How you boot is exclusively a matter of bootloader, regardless of OS.
"Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster." Niklaus Wirth - A Plea for Lean Software (1995)

Offline theYinYeti

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Re: filesystems support
« Reply #10 on: July 18, 2013, 08:31:28 AM »
That's right! I assumed the extensions would reside on the same partition where the boot files are, but tinypoodle is right: they need not be!
So:
1- Make sure your boot-loader has support for the kind of partition where the boot files are (core.gz and vmlinuz).
2- Make sure your kernel has support for the kind of partition where the extensions are.

Also, I think there's a directory inside the initramfs (don't remember where, though) where you can put extensions that will get pre-loaded before attempting to load "normal" extensions. IIRC, this pre-loading unfortunately happens before the /etc/fstab file is created.

Offline candinico

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Re: filesystems support
« Reply #11 on: July 18, 2013, 08:51:02 AM »
 @theYinYeti: how to modify the script to import the jffs2 filesystem in tinycore? I talkin about the script that install tiny on a ntfs   partition: it's not trivial , i think: caus tiny not provide the support for some filesystems ( i rember that have downloaded only the jfs-utils)

 
/ Nico

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Offline theYinYeti

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Re: filesystems support
« Reply #12 on: July 18, 2013, 11:43:00 AM »
@candinico: I can’t help you with the script you talk about because I don’t use it, nor any “official” install script. As you say, TC only supports a few filesystems, and that’s OK, since it has to be tiny. We’re just supposed to customize it, and that’s fine :)

In my first post, I gave you the link where I explain how to do things for NTFS-3G; just adapt it to your filesystem. Basically, there are two things to do:
1— incorporate the extension that brings this filesystem’s support to TC into the initramfs (core.gz);
2— check that the default filesystem “driver” for your filesystem is the right one.
Step 2 may very well be unnecessary for you. In my case, I had to do this because the default “driver” is the in-kernel “ntfs”, whereas I wanted “ntfs-3g” to be used. It’s rather rare that there are two “drivers” for the same filesystem.

Offline candinico

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Re: filesystems support
« Reply #13 on: July 19, 2013, 12:11:34 AM »
@theYinYeti ok , my question concerning the use of filrsystem utility to flash the installation and boot from the same filesystem: for example, make a new installation ON a filesystem type JFFS2 or NTFS. I runned the script , that's good , but dont'solve my problem. I think to recompile the kernel and perform more operation. My need is to launch Tiny on a SD with a JFFS2 filesystem.
/ Nico

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email: candinico@gmail.com
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Offline bmarkus

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Re: filesystems support
« Reply #14 on: July 19, 2013, 12:29:20 AM »
Why do you want to recompile kernel? Everything you need is already available. Just asking...
Béla
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