[Angstrom-devel] [Test fodder] h2200 initramfs-bootmenu available

[Paul Sokolovsky]

Hello,

On Mon, 03 Mar 2008 15:55:37 +0100
Koen Kooi <koen at dominion.kabel.utwente.nl> wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> Koen Kooi schreef:
> | Hi,
> |
> | I finally succeeded in building an angstrom 2008.x initramfs zImage:
> |
> http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/unstable/autobuild/h2200/zImage-initramfs-bootmenu-2.6.21-hh20-r13-h2200.bin
> 
> Short version: it works, sort of

I'm sorry for not responding promptly during last time, I have some
real-world backlog on the break of month...


> Long version:
> 
> I put zImage-initramfs-bootmenu-2.6.21-hh20-r13-h2200.bin on my sd
> card and linked it to /boot/zImage and pushed the reset button. After
> staring at a blank screen for a few seconds the screen was suddenly
> filled with scrary messages and times stamps. Just as I started to
> think "Hmmm, scary" the menu appeared.
> The menu had numbered items, which I was wondering how to select,
> when I accidentally hit the joypad and the highlighted entry moved. 

What else would you expect to move selection? Any key except enter and
space works actually ;-).

> I
> highlighted "1: mmcblk0p1 (ext2)" and pressed the center of the
> joypad. it showed some output and kexeced into /boot/zImage. *sigh*

I did add protection against this - when initramfs-bootment kexec to
production kernel, it passes "nokexec" on kernel command line,
the initramfs should detect it and use switch_root, not kexec to load
rootfs. I'm not sure why this didn't work, I'll have a look, but clean
testing (like making sure that there's only zImage-initramfs-bootmenu
everywhere) might help.

> 
> So I repartioned my SD card into:
> 
> mmcblk0p1: 5mb ext2 containing:
> /boot/zImage -> /boot/zImage-initramfs-bootmenu-image-2.6.21-hh20.bin
> mmcblk0p2: 900mb ext2 containing / with no /boot
> mmcblk0p3: 64mb swap
> 
> inserted the card and rebooted the ipaq. This time it worked!
> 
> IMHO the following things need to change:
> 
> * console font size, it's tiny

Well, this depends. Screen is small, and using large font will take
very long, multiple times wrapped lines for common case of using
loopback images on vfat partition.

> * better instructions on how to select items on the menu screen

Whole UI generally can take some work. I prefer to concentrate on the
functionality at first, so it's indeed bare minimum.

> * find a way to stop zimage-initramfs kexec'ing itself indefinately
> * don't like things like swap and master partitions (e.g. mmcblk0)

Yes, for debugging purposes, all partition types were shown, this can
be disabled now.

> 
> All in all I was very impressed how easy it was to boot from SD, flash
> and nfs, and if we fix the above niggles we are a huge step closer to
> and angstrom-installer initramfs. Hopefully we can slim down busybox
> enough so the hx4700 and zaurus users can use a initramfs bootmenu as
> well.

It fits hx4700's 2Mb kernel flash partition already - that's how I test
jffs2 boot. And I still think that using klibc's ash may be better plan
for slimming...

> 
> regards,
> 
> Koen

[]


-- 
Best regards,
 Paul                          mailto:pmiscml at gmail.com