[Angstrom-devel] [Test fodder] initramfs images for h2200, h3900, h5000 and hx4700

[Paul Sokolovsky]

Hello,

On Thu, 6 Mar 2008 00:44:02 +0100
"Michal Panczyk" <mpanczyk at gmail.com> wrote:

> This helps with the menu - it gets reduced to 3 positions. jffs nfs
> and shell. But I was not able to boot form mdt1 - it is looking for
> mtdblock1 Message read from LCD :
> ROOT_DEVICE=mtdblock1
> CMDLINE=keepinitrd root=mtdblock1

That's very strange - that should be /dev/mtdblock1 at least. Actually,
it cannot be just "mtdblock1" except for when you pass root= on
original kernel command line (from bootloader) - mere look at the code
will prove that.

> ....
> (SNIP) loading modules
> ....
> "No valid root device was specified. Please add root=/dev/something to
> the kernel command line and try again."
> 
> About the patch :
> We want to skip blockdevices and boot form mtdX - don't we ?

Not quite. We want to remove mtdblock driver from kernel while still be
able that boot with "dumb" kernel. Making initramfs to use fake device
names for mounting might be a good optimization, but only an
optimization - and initramfs-bootmenu can use lots of them. The
functionality is still primary then.

> Maybe the section
> " if [ "$fstype" == "(jffs2)" ]; then
> #       ROOT_FSTYPE="jffs2"
>         ROOT_DEVICE="$dev"
>  fi"
> Should somehow compare the partitions numbers ? mtdblock1 should go to
> mtd1 and so on... Just haven't figured out how to do it in smart way
> ...
> 
> Lack of console is annoying too.

This is cryptic at all.

> Is boot_root() section init.sh (in packages/initrdscripts/files/)
> responsible for that ?
> "cd $BOOT_ROOT
>  exec switch_root -c /dev/console $BOOT_ROOT /sbin/init
> "
> How about changing /dev/console to something else (ie. ttyS0 ? ).

> Another thing that has crossed my mind today - LAB has nice feature -
> it there is no action taken it automatically scans for zImage and
> tries to boot from media that provides it. It would be nice too -
> especially after 100th boot when you don't want to choose again the
> proper device to boot from...

Obviously, that's one of the important functionality features to add
before we'll be able to switch to it - I don't want to regress stuff
for people who used to use LAB and other bootloaders.

> 
> >  From: Koen Kooi <koen at dominion.kabel.utwente.nl>
> >  Subject: Re: [Angstrom-devel] [Test fodder] initramfs images for
> >         h2200, h3900, h5000 and hx4700
> >  -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> >  Hash: SHA1
> >
> >  Michal Panczyk schreef:
> >
> >
> >  | At this point - how to get params working out of the box? Some
> > kind of | syncing between initramfs kernel and regular kernel is
> > needed - get | both of them to support mtd1. Or maybe it is in the
> > boot script | waitnig to pass the root value as /dev/$1 or
> > something like that ?
> >
> >  See (thunderbird damaged) patch at the bottom
> >
> >  | Anther thing in that matter :
> >  | How to get the second kernel (or kexec - i don't know which one
> > is it) | to be more talkative. Console gets silent after :
> >
> >  I noticed that as well, it would be nice if boot messages can go
> > over serial, since psplash obscures them anyway.
> >
> >  | As it goes for the menu it can see following choices:
> >  | 0 : mtdblock0 (unknown)
> >  | 1 : mtdblock1 (jffs2)
> >  | 2 :  mtdblock2 (unknown)
> >  | 3 :  mtdblock3 (unknown)
> >  | 4 : NFS (nfsroot=192.168.2.200:/srv/nfs/oe/image)
> >  | 5 : shell
> >  |
> >  | Values 0 and 3 should get removed.
> >
> >  I think uncommenting line 85 of the bootmenu script would
> > accomplish that (see patch).
> >
> >  | SD boot should be added.
> >
> >  AIUI that gets added when it detects an sd card, so something else
> > is wrong.
> >
> >  | A reset option would be nice too.
> >  |
> >  | Where in oe is the script controlling that menu ?
> >
> >  org.openembedded.dev/packages/initrdscripts/files/30-bootmenu.sh
> >
> >  | The boot process:
> >  | I chose "1" and the screen blanked. Nothing else happened until
> > now. I | am not sure if I did everything as it was supposed to be
> > done. Judging | form Koen's experience the new zImage should just
> > be linked to old | zImage in /boot dir. And that didn't work form
> > me. |
> >  | The choice process itself is kind a hard - there are debug
> > messages | comming in from the keys driver that make the screen
> > unreadable, but | that is a different story.
> >
> >  That's probably a simple kernel patch, Paul, Milan?
> >
> >  As promised, the totally untested patch:
> >
> >
> >  # old_revision [16f0fa7ec858ba228dd9d241b0cff7a309a42dff]
> >  #
> >  # patch "packages/initrdscripts/files/30-bootmenu.sh"
> >  #  from [b378e73bcd2daa97bd9e9134000a2ade7fe2538f]
> >  #    to [5d48cde70bc16d340f2c5ad3ec825874bec7c228]
> >  #
> >  ============================================================
> >  - --- packages/initrdscripts/files/30-bootmenu.sh
> >  b378e73bcd2daa97bd9e9134000a2ade7fe2538f
> >  +++ packages/initrdscripts/files/30-bootmenu.sh
> >  5d48cde70bc16d340f2c5ad3ec825874bec7c228
> >  @@ -82,7 +82,7 @@ while read maj min nblk dev; do
> >
> >  ~     get_partition_type
> >  ~     if [ "$fstype" != "ext2" -a "$fstype" != "ext3" -a
> > "$fstype" != "vfat" -a "$fstype" != "jffs2" ]; then
> >  - -#      continue
> >  +       continue
> >  ~        true
> >  ~     fi
> >
> >  @@ -158,6 +158,7 @@ else
> >  ~     # jffs2 is not recognized by mount automagically
> >  ~     if [ "$fstype" == "(jffs2)" ]; then
> >  ~        ROOT_FSTYPE="jffs2"
> >  +        ROOT_DEVICE="$dev"
> >  ~     fi
> >  ~     CMDLINE="$CMDLINE root=$ROOT_DEVICE"
> >  ~ fi
> >  -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> >  Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (Darwin)
> >
> >  iD8DBQFHzbu9MkyGM64RGpERAryRAJ9whcgOKGccyU58MDCeeiU+aoz6JgCgt0GF
> >  RcjqnsKt/eLWfLQDAWfeHO4=
> >  =KsvZ
> >  -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Best regards
> Michal Panczyk
> 
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-- 
Best regards,
 Paul                          mailto:pmiscml at gmail.com