Re: [Debian] Running Linux from CD
On Fri, Jul 03, 1998 at 05:34:06PM +0200, Brederlow wrote: > > They didn't have space for it anymore. It'd be an interesting thing to set > > up to give people at LUG meetings. It's kinda what I wanted to do with a > > Zip disk.. Bring me a Zip disk and I'll give you a working Linux system > > that doesn't use any HD space. > > I used a 30 MB Linux on a zip for some time here at university. Not > fast, but far better than using NT. :) Since zips are rw, one can just > install a normal Debian on it. Debian wouldn't install in 30 megs. I think I'll try for 60-70. > I'm working on it. I also want to have the CD exported via nfs and > possibly have other machines boot via nfs. All one would need to show > how Linux work in a network is one CD and one bootdisk. > Using some loopback device to store data is also in my mind, > especially for swap. > > I heard that swap might not be on a MSDos filesystem. Is that still > true and what is the reason? There'd be no reason for loopback filesystem for swap... Linux can handle a swapfile. I don't see why it would matter to Linux if the thing was on fat since fat is owned by root traditionally.. Other than that you can't set the permissions to 640 for the thing.. That'd constitute a security risk, but one I think would be manageable if you mount the FAT partition securely. > > Could be quite useful. I'll look in to building something to do this if > > nobody else has once I start working on the Zip version of the same. More > > will fit on the CD-ROM, but the Zip is more upgradable and I can build the > > Zip disks custom from a mirror.. => > > Do you have a script to build the zip? Can you mount the zip ro to > simulate a CD? No. I'll prolly hack the boot floppies images to do the same and then do what they do with other packages to make a super rescue disk first. WHen I have that figured out, I'll look into more complex things like having the small installation on it. Loading Linux on this thing is not likely gonna be easy. I'm thinking that the kernel will load a ramdisk image and use the proc filesystem to find the Zip drive. Once it does that it can use the thing normally in theory. => We'll see. I only have the SCSI model so I can only do the original SCSI and parallel port versions. When people see how I do it, they're welcome to send me info on how to do the same with the Zip Plus SCSI, the same with the Zip Plus parallel driver, and the IDE models.. For an idea of how I'm gonna ID this thing, each disk Linux sees on my IDE bus is listed in /proc/ide/.. In there I have ide0/ and ide1/, but I also have hda and hdc, symlinks to inside those devices.. So, I can find my hard drive by looking for WDC in /proc/ide/hd?/model. When I get the new SCSI cables I should be able to do the same with the SCSI bus and I -KNOW- what the SCSI Zip drive's ID is. That kind of thing will help me ID the drive by the device name Linux uses, which should let me access it fine. You won't likely need to do all of that for a CD-ROM. Certainly, you'd not be able to. The only reason I'm able to is that there aren't many models of Zip drive out there to contend with. pgpVy193ORWvc.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [Debian] Running Linux from CD
Joseph Carter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 > Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable > > On Thu, Jul 02, 1998 at 03:21:33PM +0200, Niklas Höglund wrote: > > > is it possible to run Linux completely from CD. We have created > > > > I think older versions of Red Hat supported this. I remember reading > > something about it on Red Hat 4.2. RH4.2 was said to no longer support > > this. > > They didn't have space for it anymore. It'd be an interesting thing to set > up to give people at LUG meetings. It's kinda what I wanted to do with a > Zip disk.. Bring me a Zip disk and I'll give you a working Linux system > that doesn't use any HD space. I used a 30 MB Linux on a zip for some time here at university. Not fast, but far better than using NT. :) Since zips are rw, one can just install a normal Debian on it. > The message before this one explains how to make a CD with defaults and a > throwaway /var and /etc. I think instead I would in order to make this > thing not just a demo but actually useful in a place that you can't have > Linux (goin' to friend's house, friend has Windoze but I wanna use Linux) > I'd have some way to use a loopback filesystem on the HD to save defaults > like X settings and such. I'm working on it. I also want to have the CD exported via nfs and possibly have other machines boot via nfs. All one would need to show how Linux work in a network is one CD and one bootdisk. Using some loopback device to store data is also in my mind, especially for swap. I heard that swap might not be on a MSDos filesystem. Is that still true and what is the reason? > Could be quite useful. I'll look in to building something to do this if > nobody else has once I start working on the Zip version of the same. More > will fit on the CD-ROM, but the Zip is more upgradable and I can build the > Zip disks custom from a mirror.. => Do you have a script to build the zip? Can you mount the zip ro to simulate a CD? May the Source be with you. Mrvn -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null
Re: [Debian] Running Linux from CD
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > On Thu, Jul 02, 1998 at 09:44:50AM +0200, Nico De Ranter wrote: > > is it possible to run Linux completely from CD. > > Probably yes, if a system has sufficient RAM. One would have to combine some > things: [snip] 8 MB's are perfectly fine for this. I used a setup of a 4MB ramdisk and a lifefilesystem on CD for the Eagle Linux m68k installation routine. With only 8 MB you can't run without swap, but that can be on a native partition (i.e. no need to repartition the drive). With 12 MB I'm able to run bash and other small programms without swap. I would think the average ram in a computer nowadays would be 16 - 32 MB ram, more for better systems. With that starting X without swap could even be possible. May the Source be with you. Mrvn -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null
Re: [Debian] Running Linux from CD
Joseph Carter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Thu, Jul 02, 1998 at 03:21:33PM +0200, Niklas H=F6glund wrote: > > > is it possible to run Linux completely from CD. We have created > >=20 > > I think older versions of Red Hat supported this. I remember reading > > something about it on Red Hat 4.2. RH4.2 was said to no longer support > > this. [...] > The message before this one explains how to make a CD with defaults and a > throwaway /var and /etc. I think instead I would in order to make this > thing not just a demo but actually useful in a place that you can't have > Linux (goin' to friend's house, friend has Windoze but I wanna use Linux) > I'd have some way to use a loopback filesystem on the HD to save defaults > like X settings and such. > > Could be quite useful. I'll look in to building something to do this if > nobody else has once I start working on the Zip version of the same. More > will fit on the CD-ROM, but the Zip is more upgradable and I can build the > Zip disks custom from a mirror.. =3D> There exist plans to include a "live filesystem" on the contrib CD, for backup/restore purposes. Plans though are early and not much has been done, yet. Jens --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Key ID: 2048/E451C639 Jens Ritter Key fingerprint: 5F 3D 43 1E 24 1E CC 48 1E 05 93 3A A7 10 73 37 Nothing works better as it is supposed to. (Steven Chu) -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null
Re: [Debian] Running Linux from CD
On Thu, Jul 02, 1998 at 03:21:33PM +0200, Niklas Höglund wrote: > > is it possible to run Linux completely from CD. We have created > > I think older versions of Red Hat supported this. I remember reading > something about it on Red Hat 4.2. RH4.2 was said to no longer support > this. They didn't have space for it anymore. It'd be an interesting thing to set up to give people at LUG meetings. It's kinda what I wanted to do with a Zip disk.. Bring me a Zip disk and I'll give you a working Linux system that doesn't use any HD space. The message before this one explains how to make a CD with defaults and a throwaway /var and /etc. I think instead I would in order to make this thing not just a demo but actually useful in a place that you can't have Linux (goin' to friend's house, friend has Windoze but I wanna use Linux) I'd have some way to use a loopback filesystem on the HD to save defaults like X settings and such. Could be quite useful. I'll look in to building something to do this if nobody else has once I start working on the Zip version of the same. More will fit on the CD-ROM, but the Zip is more upgradable and I can build the Zip disks custom from a mirror.. => pgpeKZhP78nLO.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [Debian] Running Linux from CD
On Thu, 2 Jul 1998, Nico De Ranter wrote: > is it possible to run Linux completely from CD. We have created I think older versions of Red Hat supported this. I remember reading something about it on Red Hat 4.2. RH4.2 was said to no longer support this. --- Niklas -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null
Re: [Debian] Running Linux from CD
Nico De Ranter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Hi, > > is it possible to run Linux completely from CD. We have created > a product on top of Linux but now face the problem of having to > install Linux every time we give a demo to a potential costumer > (when running on the customer's PC). Being able to boot and run > linux completely from CD would make giving demos a lot easier. > > Nico It sure is possible, as I did this several times. In fact it is the way Eagle Linux m68k (a Debian based distribution) runs their install programms and demo mode. Here are some steps on how to create such a CD. 1. Install a System on ONE Partition with everything setup as needed/wanted. 2. Create a second partition of ~16 MB, format and mount it (I assume its mounted to /floppy) 3. Copy the directories and files onto /floppy that are needed to boot and mount the CD. Link everything else to /cdrom/ e.g.: (Be carefull to preserve the right, use mc or tar.) > cp -R /etc /floppy/etc > ln -s /cdrom/usr /floppy/usr You should be able to fit the neccessary stuff into that 16 MB easily. 4. Edit /etc/rcS.d/S00cdromboot.sh (create that) inser the following lines: mount /dev/<16 MB Partition> / -oremount,rw -n mount /dev/ /cdrom -oro 5. boot via loadlin with root=/dev/<16 MB partition> 6. Get that working 7. Remove as much as possible from the 16 MB Partition and link that to /cdrom, you need to get below 4 MB, or you have to use the commandline for bigger ramdisks. 8. Make a 4 MB ramdisk and copy the 16 MB Partition onto it, you should have it below 4 MB by now. 9. gzip the ramdisk and put it onto the ONE System Partition, add loadlin and the kernel and some bat file for starting. 10. Burn a CD from the ONE System partition. I hope that doesn't sound to complicated. If you have any questons, feel free to write. May the Source be with you. Mrvn PS: I could send you an Image of such a CD via ftp, but ist ~150 MB. -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null
Re: [Debian] Running Linux from CD
On Thu, Jul 02, 1998 at 09:44:50AM +0200, Nico De Ranter wrote: > is it possible to run Linux completely from CD. Probably yes, if a system has sufficient RAM. One would have to combine some things: - The capability to boot directly from CD; the Debian CDs already do this. Andreas Jellinghaus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> is working on the scripts that are used to create the Debian CDs. To a certain extent being able to boot a CD directly is optional; you can boot to Linux on CD using DOS or Windows (see the boot.bat on Debian CDs). - Debian follows the Linux Filesystem Standard (FSSTND) / Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) (http://www.pathname.com/fhs/), so that the directories that need to be writable are clearly identified (e.g /usr can be on a read-only medium). SuSE uses this to run large portions of their product directly from CD. - Linux supports ramdisks, which can be used to provide a read/write medium for /var and /tmp . The combined solution would be: boot from CD, load a disk image (containing something very similar to the Debian base system) as the root filesystem, and mount /usr from the CD. HTH, Ray -- PATRIOTISM A great British writer once said that if he had to choose between betraying his country and betraying a friend he hoped he would have the decency to betray his country. - The Hipcrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null
[Debian] Running Linux from CD
Hi, is it possible to run Linux completely from CD. We have created a product on top of Linux but now face the problem of having to install Linux every time we give a demo to a potential costumer (when running on the customer's PC). Being able to boot and run linux completely from CD would make giving demos a lot easier. Nico -- -- Nico De Ranter Sony Service Center (PSDC-B/DNSE-B) Sint Stevens Woluwestraat 55 (Rue de Woluwe-Saint-Etienne) 1130 Brussel (Bruxelles), Belgium, Europe, Earth Telephone: +32 2 724 86 41 Telefax: +32 2 726 26 86 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null
