[Solved] TC3.8_4 Real Time Upgrade

[Juanito]

At the risk of repeating something that has already been mentioned..

Once you have your new initrd ready to go with the rt kernel modules that go in the base and assuming the initrd is extracted to /tmp/extract, then you need this command before creating your new initrd:

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$ sudo depmod -a -b /tmp/extract 3.6.4-tinycore
Where you substitute your kernel name for "3.6.4-tinycore" - after issuing the command you can delete the files created except for modules.alias and modules.dep and then create your new initrd.

[Rich]

Hi Juanito
Good thought, but I already made him do that twice.

[Rich]

Hi MTCAT

... I'm not doing anything special to start up the Window manager, that's just what gets booted up for me somehow, ...

There is something very wrong here. The contents of your  onboot.lst  file do not support that statement. Something else
is interfering with the boot process.

Unplug the data cable to the hard drive. Unplug the other thumb drive (sdc1). Boot up the system.
I expect it to boot up to a black screen with a command prompt.
See if  eth0  is present.

[MTCAT]

Hi Rich,

I have only a CF-card for my "hard-drive", I'll remove it on next boot-up, and I have just the boot pen drive plugged in otherwise...

Not sure it helps or not, but I did find this https://www.kabisa.nl/tech/xen-how-to-fix-siocsifaddr-no-such-device/ regarding the eth0 issue, MAC address problem ?

Also, I found this re: the boot-loader http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/doku.php?id=wiki:extlinux , need to install vesamenu.c32 and chain.c32 in order to select the kernel at boot time ?

Sorry, off to work, will try the boot-up w/o the CF-card tonight.

Thanks for all the help Rich and Juanito,

David

[Rich]

Hi MTCAT

... Not sure it helps or not, but I did find this https://www.kabisa.nl/tech/xen-how-to-fix-siocsifaddr-no-such-device/ regarding the eth0 issue, MAC address problem ? ...

No, I don't think so. I think it's related to the  ramzswap0  error, both of which are probably due to kernel modules not
being found. I suspect that is also related to your GUI magically coming up without you having to do anything.

... Also, I found this re: the boot-loader http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/doku.php?id=wiki:extlinux , need to install vesamenu.c32 and chain.c32 in order to select the kernel at boot time ? ...

Seems the writeup I looked at left out that little detail. Copy  vesamenu.c32  to the same directory as your  extlinux.conf
file. Add this to the top of your  extlinux.conf  file:

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UI vesamenu.c32

[Rich]

Hi MTCAT
Before you change anything. After you've done a  depmod  and  udevadm, please confirm that the system can
now find the  zram  kernel module:

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modinfo -d zramIf it returns a description, it found it. If it just returns a command prompt, it didn't.

[MTCAT]

Hi Rich,

I removed the CF-card and unfortunately still saw the same behavior. I did the depmod and udevadm commands followed by the "modinfo -d zram" which returned no description at all, nothing was found, just returned to the command prompt.

I was poking around on the net and found this http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/3.x/contrib/rt-kernel/

Might there be anything in there that might help us ?, I notice that whoever built the kernel (Arslan ?), used the same 2.6.33.3-rt19 patch that I'm trying to use as well !

Thanks,

David

[MTCAT]

Hi Rich,

I don't know if this helps or not, but I attached the output of lsmod too, it looks kind of weird to me, very different anyway than the non-RT kernel, but maybe there's a hint there for someone who knows what to look for !

Thanks,

David

[Rich]

Hi MTCAT
According to  the last scan you ran, there are 3 devices connected, sda, sdb, and sdc. Did you disconnect both
devices that do not contain the real time kernel?

With both devices removed, is it still booting straight to a GUI?

[curaga]

Oh indeed, there's a ready RT kernel with your version, and the extensions already in the 3.x repo. Do try that instead of making your own.

[MTCAT]

Hi Rich and curaga,

Yup, I disconnected the CF-card (usually labeled sda5) and then just booted up with the pen drive containing the RT kernel, the boot process gets hung up on the ifconfig error for a while, but then kicks out of that somehow and goes right into FLWM.

I tried to install vesamenu.c32 but I downloaded the wrong version it seems, I think I can get the right version from the "syslinux" package, so I'll try that next, just for the heck of it.

What do you think about using a pre-built RT kernel though ? Would that be as simple a process as installing "regular" TinyCore, like we did when working from an iso file ?, the pre-built kernel is just the "bzImage" file and the modules (I think).

Thanks,

David

[Rich]

Hi MTCAT

Yup, I disconnected the CF-card (usually labeled sda5) and then just booted up with the pen drive containing the RT kernel, the boot process gets hung up on the ifconfig error for a while, but then kicks out of that somehow and goes right into FLWM. ...

sda  is probably this:

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/proc/swaps=
Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/sda1                               partition 1043448 0 -1
sdb  is your thumb drive with the RT kernel. What is  sdc:

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mounts=
rootfs on / type rootfs (rw,relatime,size=1803816k,nr_inodes=218376)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,relatime)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,relatime)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,relatime,mode=600)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,relatime)
/dev/sdb1 on /mnt/sdb1 type ext4 (rw,relatime,barrier=1,data=ordered)
/dev/sdb1 on /home type ext4 (rw,relatime,barrier=1,data=ordered)
/dev/sdb1 on /opt type ext4 (rw,relatime,barrier=1,data=ordered)
/dev/sdc1 on /mnt/sdc1 type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0000,dmask=0000,allow_utime=0022,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)

disk free=
Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs                    1.7G     20.1M      1.7G   1% /
tmpfs                   978.6M         0    978.6M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/sdb1                14.1G      1.4G     12.7G  10% /mnt/sdb1
/dev/sdb1                14.1G      1.4G     12.7G  10% /home
/dev/sdb1                14.1G      1.4G     12.7G  10% /opt
/dev/sdc1                59.7G     57.0G      2.7G  96% /mnt/sdc1From the  dmesg  section:

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scsi3 : usb-storage 1-2:1.0
scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access     SanDisk  Cruzer Glide     1100 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
sdc: sdc1
sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk

... I tried to install vesamenu.c32 but I downloaded the wrong version it seems, ...

If you used the  tc-install  extension from TC3, you need to install the  syslinux.tcz  from TC3. Then copy:

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/usr/local/share/syslinux/vesamenu.c32

[MTCAT]

Hi Rich,

sdc was a 64 GByte SanDisk pen drive that I use to transfer files between my main desktop and the little VortexDX3, but I didn't stick that in until after boot-up.

Thanks for the help re: syslinux, I clued into that as well this morning and downloaded syslinux from the repository (after getting eht0 up and running), copied vesamenu.c32 to /mnt/sdb1/boot/extlinux and it worked !, looks pretty nice too.

What do you think, try the pre-built RT kernel ?, but how to install with only the bzImage and module file (see link in previous post), or keep trying with the existing RT kernel ?

Thanks,

David

[Rich]

Hi MTCAT

... What do you think, try the pre-built RT kernel ?, but how to install with only the bzImage and module file (see link in previous post), or keep trying with the existing RT kernel ?

You'll need to include the modules file with the initrd somehow. I don't know if extlinux accepts multiple initrds, but I found
this post for combining the modules file with the stock initrd:

Grub is ok with merely cat'ed initrds though. cat tinycore.gz rt-modules.cpio.gz > tinycorert.gz

Less space efficient than repacking, but easier to do.

I don't know if you'll have any issues if you need to use any kernel module extensions.

[MTCAT]

Hi Rich,

Starting from scratch, would the general idea be, boot up TC3 (on my old YUMI pen drive), install regular TC3.8.4 from the iso onto a new pen drive as per your instructions, then place the real-time bzImage in /mnt/sdb1/boot on the freshly made TC3.8.4 install, make the new initrd as you just showed me (with cat, using the existing initrd and the rt cpio,gz file), lastly modify extlinux so as to load the RT kernel and use the RT initrd and optionally add vesamenu.c32 so as to be able to choose between RT kernel and regular kernel at boot up.

Does that sound right ?

Thanks,

David