woody install via USB FDD (Re: Debian Weekly News - May 15th, 2002)

[Taketoshi Sano <sano@debian.org>]

Hi!

I've read a topic about installation via USB Floppy Drive in
the recent DWN.  (This mail is copied to debian-laptop ML,
but I haven't subscribed yet. Please be carefull when you
reply to me.)

I've locally created woody boot-floppies 3.0.18 with the modification
to enable the install via USB FDD, and put it at

 http://www.debian.or.jp/~sano/usbfdboot/woody-3.0.18-cvs-boot-floppies/

And there are:

  usbfdboot/woody-3.0.18-cvs-boot-floppies:
    total 5788
             2172 Jan 21 04:02 diff-usbfdboot-boot-floppies.txt
          1474560 Dec 30 02:50 drv14-1.bin
             1300 Jan 21 03:44 readme-usbfdboot.txt
          1474560 Jan 21 03:53 resc1440-s.bin
          1474560 Jan 21 04:01 resc1440.bin
          1474560 Dec 30 03:19 root1440.bin

  usbfdboot/woody-3.0.18-cvs-boot-floppies/kernel-patches:
    total 12
           383 Dec 30 02:40 diff-2.2.20-drivers-block-rd-c-usbfdboot.txt
           372 Dec 30 02:40 diff-2.2.20-fs-super-c-usbfdboot.txt
           588 Dec 30 02:40 diff-2.2.20-init-main-c-usbfdboot.txt

It uses USB FDD as /dev/sda via Kernel usb code.  
So the root disk (root1440.bin) has /dev/fd0 as simlink 
to /dev/sda.

The used kernel is based on the compact flavor one, and
it is also patched by me.  The patch used is in kernel-patches
subdirectory.  Please read the file readme-usbfdboot.txt, it
explains how to use them.

 on "Wed, 15 May 2002 22:13:45 +0200",
 with "Debian Weekly News - May 15th, 2002",
  Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org> wrote:

joey> Installation of Debian through an USB Floppy Drive. Gernot Weber
joey> [13]wondered how he could manage to install Debian with an USB-Floppy.
joey> The rescue disk booted but the installer couldn't find the root-disk
joey> after changing. Werner Heuser [14]pointed out that a special boot
joey> option may be required in order to make Linux recognize the floppy
joey> drive. If this doesn't work one could still try another installation
joey> method as described in the [15]Linux-Mobile-Guide.
joey> 
joey>  13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-laptop-0205/msg00157.html
joey>  14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-laptop-0205/msg00158.html
joey>  15. http://mobilix.org/Mobile-Guide.db/Mobile-Guide.html

Linux kernel checks if the specified device if floppy or not
before doing ram disk load (drivers/block/rd.c), and before
output the prompt for disk change (fs/super.c). So the patch
for them are requied to use USB FDD as /dev/sda and load the
root disk into ram disk via USB FDD.

The patch for init/main.c is not required for 2.4 kernel, but
2.2 kernel can't detect the USB devices after the first prompt
of disk change is passed, so the second prompt is required.

Patches for 2.4.16 kernel is at

  http://www.debian.or.jp/~sano/usbfdboot/lilofloppy-2.4.16-usbfdboot/usbfdboot-patch-2.4.16/

and 2.4.16 requires another patch for fs/exec.c.  
I don't know why, but it can't work without it.

Currently I don't have enough time, so I plan to update them
after the woody release, but hopely they can work even now.

Thank you.
-- 
  Taketoshi Sano: <sano@debian.org>,<sano@debian.or.jp>,<kgh12351@nifty.ne.jp>


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