change boot file location?

[Zweitaktmotor]

Hi,

Looking at the file isolinux.cfg, I notice the lines

KERNEL /boot/vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=/boot/core.gz [options]

under each menu entry and I was wondering if this location can changed? And if so, what is the syntax?

What I want to achieve is this:

I have a laptop that can only be booted from CD (no HD installed, extensions are on an SD card, which is known as sda1 but is not a boot device). Rather than having to burn a new CD for every version of TC Plus, I was hoping to create a boot CD that points to a location on the card where vmlinuz and core.gz are stored. This way I could keep one boot CD for as long as the command line parameters remain valid, i.e. across several updates of TC.

Is that at all possible?

Many thanks for your advice.

[tinypoodle]

Tricky...

You might want to look into "kexec" if there is a way.

Are you able to access your SD card from DOS?
In that case it would be feasable to boot a DOS CD and then use a DOS based Linux boot loader.

[ixbrian]

You might want to look at something like the "super grub2 disk" and see if it can be used as a CD based bootloader to boot Tiny Core off your SD card.   I haven't tried this myself. 

[aus9]

hi

How did you confirm that your bios can not accept  sd cards at boot?
Would you link to your specifications please?
My preferred option is for you to have sd card bootable

2) what about having just a cd that enables other media.....I am thinking smart boot manager

its a bit old and I have not tested yet
http://sourceforge.net/projects/btmgr/files/

cheers

EDIT

forgot were I was, forum rules allow discussion of remastering in the remaster section.

[coreplayer2]

I believe PLOP will do exactly what you are looking for

[Zweitaktmotor]

Hi, Many thanks for all your tips which I will try one-by-one.

My laptop is a Sony Vaio VGN-B3XP. It was due to go to the scrap heap when I got hold of it. I like it because it is sturdy (I use it outdoors!) and works well with TC. If it breaks, it would not be a big loss.

It has the following specs:

1GHz processor (good)
512 MB RAM (sufficient)
CD/DVD drive (was faulty but had one to replace)
2.5" HD slot (empty, I like the fact that I do not have any mechanical parts moving, long battery life!)
2 USB slots (not recognised for booting)
1 SONY Memory Stick Pro slot (not recognised by Linux at all, I would love to put TC on a 128 MB stick that I have!)
1 PCMCIA slot (now occupied by an old SD card reader with a 2 GB card, slot is not recognised as a boot device and would need special drivers under DOS)

One peculiar characteristic is that this model was so closely integrated with WinXP, that many configuration options were only accessible from a Win utility program (was on the hd that is no longer there). Even the Phoenix BIOS is very basic and does not give me much to play with.

***

For each new version of TC, I copy the cde content to the tce folder on the card edit a menu entry in isolinux.cfg like this:

APPEND initrd=/boot/core.gz loglevel=3 showapps desktop=icewm waitusb=15 tce=sda1 laptop kmap=qwerty/uk

By doing so, I can remove the CD after booting and have the drive free for another disk if needed. It also saves battery power. I can easily get 3 hours life now.

But this is all a bit fiddly. I would rather put the ISO or its contents on the SD card without editing the file and/or wasting so many blank CDs.


***

One thing I noticed: Although the machine will not boot from a USB stick, it does recognise an external USB floppy drive as bootable. This may be a way forward, but then I'd have to carry a brick of a drive everywhere I go.


Many thanks so far. Any more thoughts welcome.

[aus9]

oops I forgot to mention ultimate boot cd
--contains plop as well

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

[curaga]

Instead of a PCMCIA adapter, consider a SD-to-IDE (or CF-to-IDE) one? They go for about ten USD at DX.

Would be bootable, while also staying flash. Also would save boot time from not using the CD (and burning the CD in the first place )

[Zweitaktmotor]

Ah I forgot about those adapters. Yes, sounds like a good solution.

Many thanks.