From: misc <mi...@sw...> - 2003-10-03 14:39:10
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How does one go about installing a distribution that images haven't been created for? I'd like to install an older Slackware 3.0 distribution for a development project, but don't really know where to start. Is it possible run run this old of a distribution under UML? I've poked around a little looking for some documentation on installing a distribution from scratch under UML, but I haven't really found anything as of yet or I'm not not very perceptive. Any and all help would be grealy appreciated! Best Regards, -=tim |
From: Jeff D. <jd...@ad...> - 2003-10-06 21:23:16
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mi...@sw... said: > I'd like to install an older Slackware 3.0 distribution for a > development project, but don't really know where to start. Is it > possible run run this old of a distribution under UML? It shouldn't be a problem. This is mostly a matter of convincing the installation procedure that it understands the UML. So, you have to present it with installation sources and targets that it recognizes. See the fakedh, fakeide, and ubd=<n> options. If it does any hardware probing, that has to be disabled somehow. In my experience, this means disabling hwclock running at boot time and not installing pcmcia. Also, invoking UML properly can be a challenge. When I did the Slackware image, I unpacked the boot image to get the command line from the bootloader config file and the boot filesystem image. That was before UML had initrd support, so that part may be easier now. Jeff |
From: misc <mi...@sw...> - 2003-10-07 21:04:05
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Jeff, First off, many thanks for the response.....I was beginning to think that it wasn't possible or no one cared. :-) > It shouldn't be a problem. fair enough. > This is mostly a matter of convincing the installation procedure that it > understands the UML. So, you have to present it with installation sources > and targets that it recognizes. See the fakedh, fakeide, and ubd=<n> options. Well, so far it hasn't been playing nice, but I'll revisit the options you've mentioned above. I don't believe I used fakedh, but toyed around with fakeid, although I'm not sure I was using it properly. > If it does any hardware probing, that has to be disabled somehow. In my > experience, this means disabling hwclock running at boot time and not > installing pcmcia. Hmm...ok > Also, invoking UML properly can be a challenge. When I did the Slackware With this, I would have to *heavily* agree. :-) > image, I unpacked the boot image to get the command line from the bootloader > config file and the boot filesystem image. That was before UML had initrd > support, so that part may be easier now. I'll see what I can come up with, but I'm sure I'll be back. Thanks again for the comment(s). Best Regards, -=tim |
From: Edwin E. <ed...@da...> - 2003-10-07 22:41:15
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On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, misc wrote: > Jeff, > > First off, many thanks for the response.....I was beginning to think that it > wasn't possible or no one cared. :-) > > > It shouldn't be a problem. > fair enough. > > > This is mostly a matter of convincing the installation procedure that it > > understands the UML. So, you have to present it with installation sources > > and targets that it recognizes. See the fakedh, fakeide, and ubd=<n> > options. > Is the installation of a new slack distro (9.1) under UML of any help? I wrote a howto about it on http://uml.datux.nl -- //||\\ Edwin Eefting || || || DatuX - Linux solutions and innovations \\||// http://www.datux.nl |
From: Jeff D. <jd...@ad...> - 2003-10-07 22:44:29
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mi...@sw... said: > Well, so far it hasn't been playing nice, but I'll revisit the options > you've mentioned above. I don't believe I used fakedh, but toyed > around with fakeid, although I'm not sure I was using it properly. The first thing you need to do is understand the install procedure. Once you've done that, then you look at UML to see how it can provide what the distro expects. The first thing is to get the kernel command line right. Unpack the install boot image and somewhere in there should be something that tells you how the kernel is invoked. This will tell you what the init program is, and what arguments, if any, it expects on the kernel command line. Once UML is invoked properly, the next thing to do is figure out what the install expects for hardware. Various things to do: add -x to script #! lines so you can tell what they're doing and where they're failing get a shell and strace parts of the install to see what system calls it's doing and where it's failing examine the sources of the install tools to see how they do what they do There are a bunch of ways that install procedures figure out what devices exist and are usable - ask the user - Slackware did this, which made it very pleasant. You just need to make sure that the device you're going to tell it about exists. mknod the ubd devices in the boot image /dev and put devfs=nomount on the command line, and you should be all set open every block device in /dev and see which succeed - you can mknod some ubd devices and see if it picks them up, ubd=3 on the command line will make the ubd driver take over the hd devices open a fixed set of names - mknod some hd devices with major 98 open a fixed set of major numbers - ubd=<n> on the command line examine other parts of /proc, like /proc/ide/*, /proc/partitions, etc - this is what fakeide and fakehd are for other bizarre things - I ran into one which located CD-ROM drives by seeing which block devices understood the "set the volume" ioctl, which is why the ubd driver now supports that ioctl Once you've got past that hurdle, the install should proceed nicely. You may have other glitches like pcmcia and hwclock messing things up, but those are pretty easy to handle. Jeff |
From: misc <mi...@sw...> - 2003-10-08 13:23:08
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Ok, I've extracted the boot and root disks into my uml directory. > The first thing is to get the kernel command line right. Unpack the install > boot image and somewhere in there should be something that tells you how the > kernel is invoked. This will tell you what the init program is, and what > arguments, if any, it expects on the kernel command line. boot = /dev/fd0 message=/boot/message prompt image = /vmlinuz label = ramdisk ramdisk = 1440 root = /dev/fd0H1440 vga = normal More or less what I'm looking for or am I not even close? Before I did any of this, I tried to just invoke UML with the following: linux fakehd fake_ide ubd0=bare.gz initrd=color144 Which resulted in: ----------------------8< snip 8<------------------------------- Partition check: hda: unknown partition table ----------------------8< snip 8<------------------------------- RAMDISK: Minix filesystem found at block 0 RAMDISK: Loading 1440 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done. Freeing initrd memory: 1440k freed FAT: bogus logical sector size 0 UMSDOS: msdos_read_super failed, mount aborted. FAT: bogus logical sector size 0 FAT: bogus logical sector size 0 Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 62:00 Am I way out there in left field? :-) Thanks, -=tim |
From: Jeff D. <jd...@ad...> - 2003-10-08 17:48:22
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mi...@sw... said: > Before I did any of this, I tried to just invoke UML with the > following: linux fakehd fake_ide ubd0=bare.gz initrd=color144 I would ditch everything you don't know that you need - fakehd fake_ide These two make it look like UML doesn't have minix compiled in: > RAMDISK: Minix filesystem found at block 0 > Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 62:00 Jeff |
From: misc <mi...@sw...> - 2003-10-09 17:08:37
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> These two make it look like UML doesn't have minix compiled in: > > > RAMDISK: Minix filesystem found at block 0 > > Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 62:00 Well, I compiled a new version and made sure I had all that I thought I might need. I uncompressed the bare boot disk (this helped) and issued: linux ubd0=bootdsks.144/bare ubd1=rootdsks.144/color144 ramdisk=1440 root=/dev/ubd1 This gets me a little further, but not much. :-) Oct 9 08:41:10 init[1]: version 2.4 booting /bin/rm: /etc/mtab: Read-only file system /bin/rm: /etc/utmp: Read-only file system /etc/rc: cannot create /etc/utmp: read-only file system Oct 9 08:41:10 init[1]: Entering runlevel: 4 /etc/agetty: /dev/tty1: No such file or directory /etc/agetty: /dev/tty3: No such file or directory /etc/agetty: /dev/tty2: No such file or directory N_TXTOFF is not page aligned. Please convert library: ld.so ------------------- 8< Snip (just keeps repeating...) 8<--------------- Best Regards, -=tim |
From: misc <mi...@sw...> - 2003-10-09 20:22:27
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ok, I've successfully booted up my old Slackware, but I can't seem to find/access any of the drives to fdisk them. I've run the following: linux ubd0=rootdsks.144/color144 ubd2=root_fs devfs=nomount rw It boots up fine, and I'm left with a login and logon as root and I get the: Welcome to Slackware Linux installation disk, (v. 2.1.0) Woo-Hoo!!! But..... # cat /proc/devices Block devices: 1 ramdisk 7 loop 43 nbd 98 ubd Issuing a fdisk -l gives me nothing. What am I missing or doing wrong? Best Regards, -=tim |
From: Jeff D. <jd...@ad...> - 2003-10-11 01:46:11
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mi...@sw... said: > Issuing a fdisk -l gives me nothing. What am I missing or doing wrong? strace that and see what it's doing. Jeff |