[nwst-dev] Build in cmd-line and initrd

[Stefan U. H. <st...@he...>]

Hi Folks,

Michael (a German buddy of mine) and myself are busy updating lots of
code for the ltsp stuff ...

However, we have come accross one problem when it comes to the initrd
and the cmd-line.

My cmd-line (on a ethernet 8362-a53) for the initrd is

"console=3Dtty0 mem=3D64M root=3D/dev/ram0 rw init=3D/linuxrc ip=3Ddhcp".

So I can specify the location of the nfs-root at boot-time. That works
fine (but only for me an only with the "older" ltsp-4.1 initrd).

Michael (who has a tokenring version of the 8362) needs to specify
nfs-root in the kernel, otherwise the Netstation won't boot properly, so
he tosses out my "root=3D" and my "init=3D" and puts in

        root=3D/dev/nfs nfsroot=3D/pfad/zum/rootfs

otherwise his system hangs.

In the process of our efforts, he has rebuild an initrd with recent
tools and libraries. And that works for him the same way, as the old
ltsp one. If I use his initrd with my kernel the /linuxrc does not seem
to start (even though its in the ramdisk) when I pass

	root=3D/dev/ram0 rw init=3D/linuxrc.

All I get then at boot-time is the following:

	[...]
        RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
        Freeing initrd memory: 864k freed
        Mounted devfs on /dev
        Freeing unused kernel memory:
        172k init 36k pmak 4k chrp 4k openfirmware=20
       =20
... and then my system hangs.

Despite that, I've had frequently problems with modified initrds, even
if they looked fine (with e2fsck) and all was in, it wouldn't work.

Then I did go back to an older version, did the same stuff again (often
just change of one line in a script) and then it worked.

Question@all: Are there known problems/limitation with the ramdisks on
the Netstation? Is this a possible reason why Garcia uses cramfs
ramdisks? Has someone made similar experience with cmd-line parameters?

Maybe someone has here some insight in the far back of his mind that
might save us a couple dozen hours of work.

Thanks a lot!

Stefan.



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