How to mount drives with extensions if only bootable from CD?

[Zweitaktmotor]

Hi,

I need a bit of a pointer to get me on the way please:

I have an old laptop without a HD. The only way to boot it is from a CD and it does so nicely using Tiny Core Plus 4.3

Problems:

1. For storage, I want to use a PCMCIA to SD card adapter. After booting from CD, I can mount it as sda1, but during boot it is not seen by tiny core so that I always get a pristine system without any extensions. Obviously, I could re-master the CD with a mount point inserted. But given the quick update cycles of TC, I do not want to do that every time a new version comes out. I would rather use the CD or the ISO just as it comes.

I don't mind entering a boot code manually everytime I start the machine, but cannot find one that does what I want. I tried tce=sda1 but get a "No such directory". I assume this is because sda1 needs to be mounted first.

Different problem:
2. All the window manager options on Core Plus state "Boot not removable" and when I call up certain modules, the CD is often  accessed again. How can I load the whole system into RAM so that the CD is no longer needed? This would be a huge advantage for battery life.


Sorry if this has been answered before. I found a few threads that came close but none that gave me a solution.

Many thanks!

[Rich]

Hi Zweitaktmotor
Try   waitusb=5 tce=sda1   at the boot prompt.
Instead of using the Core Plus CD, try using a Tinycore CD, you should then be able to remove the disc.
http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/4.x/x86/release/TinyCore-current.iso

[curaga]

1. This is what the waitusb code is for. "waitusb=30:LABEL=mydisk" waits up to 30 seconds for a disk labeled "mydisk" to show up.

2. No boot option I think, you'd need to remaster to add a copy2fs.flg file to the cde dir.

@Rich: current TC isos also use a cde dir.

[Rich]

Hi curaga
Thanks. Guess I didn't pay close enough attention when reading the release notes.

[Zweitaktmotor]

Many thanks. The "waitusb" seems to work, but only if I also add "laptop" because this activates the pcmcia.

I tried the standard tiny core, but still get the odd CD access. I like the plus version because wifi works out of the box. Still experimenting. The ISO is small enough to fit in a ream disk. Now I only need to find one that survives a warm reset (ctrl alt del) I think I had one of these in my old MS-DOS days...

[Rich]

Hi Zweitaktmotor
The reason you can't remove the CD is because the  cde  directory contains extensions that are mounted.

[Zweitaktmotor]

I now extracted, edited and re-inserted isolinux.cfg to contain all the boot options I would like.

I also tried to remove the cde parameter but it did not work.

Is there anything I can do change this? Also to get rid of the unused Window managers?

I tried to approach it from the other end and install wireless into standard TC, but it did not really work. And as I said, I still get the odd CD access with this, but I don't know why.

It is nice to experiment. The TC architecture seems simple enough for a newbie to try things.

So far, I have only been a Linux user (Mint Debian).

[coreplayer2]

You could use TinyCore-4.3.1.iso   or simply make a remaster to your own spec.  TC is extremely flexible in it's modes of operation, and is rarely limited in any way..

[Rich]

Hi Zweitaktmotor
Copy the contents of the  cde/optional  directory to your  tce/optional directory on your flash drive.
Add the contents of the  cde/onboot.lst  file to your  tce/onboot.lst  file.
Since you already know how to unpack/repack the ISO, add  waitusb=30:LABEL=mydisk laptop  to the isolinux.cfg
file and remove the  cde  boot code. You might also have to remove or empty the  cde/onboot.lst  file, I don't know
about that. You should now be able to remove the CD (after un-mounting it). If all goes well, you can go through
the  /tce/onboot.lst  file and determine which extensions you don't require.

[Zweitaktmotor]

Brilliant! That's the sort of tinkering I like. Won't be able to do it now but later in the week and report back here.

Many thanks.