[gentoo-embedded] bootable iso9660 CD without initrd

[gentoo-embedded] bootable iso9660 CD without initrd

[Karl Hiramoto]

Hi,

I'm trying to prototype & demo a x86 embedded system on a virtual 
machine with a RO root file system.  I thought of making a bootable CD 
to do it.  I'm trying to do it without a initrd to keep the footprint to 
a minimum, the kernel boots but getting the error of init unable to open 
the initial console.  I suspect the problem is that iso9660 can not 
store /dev/console correctly as a character device.

Does anyone know if this is possible, and if there are examples anywhere 
on how to do it?

Thanks.

Re: [gentoo-embedded] bootable iso9660 CD without initrd

[Peter Stuge]

Karl Hiramoto wrote:
> Does anyone know if this is possible, and if there are examples
> anywhere on how to do it?

Not possible I think - you need a root device with a fully functional
filesystem. Maybe you can hack something up with UMSDOS (IIRC) but I
doubt it. If you need a CD, make a minimal initramfs which mounts
your ro filesystem using loopback.


//Peter

Re: [gentoo-embedded] bootable iso9660 CD without initrd

[Karl Hiramoto]

Peter Stuge wrote:
> Karl Hiramoto wrote:
>   
>> Does anyone know if this is possible, and if there are examples
>> anywhere on how to do it?
>>     
>
> Not possible I think - you need a root device with a fully functional
> filesystem. Maybe you can hack something up with UMSDOS (IIRC) but I
> doubt it. If you need a CD, make a minimal initramfs which mounts
> your ro filesystem using loopback.

Actually with a few more tries i got it to work, got busybox running now.

my iso9660 loop:

 ls -la /mnt/tmp/dev/
total 8
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root  2048 2009-10-06 15:47 .
drwxr-xr-x 20 root root  4096 2009-10-07 20:11 ..
crw-rw-rw-  1 root root 5,  1 2009-10-07 20:11 console
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root     8 2009-10-05 19:43 log -> /tmp/log
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  2048 2009-10-05 19:43 pts
crw-rw-rw-  1 root root 4, 64 2009-10-07 20:11 ttyS0
crw-rw-rw-  1 root root 4, 65 2009-10-07 20:11 ttyS1


Thanks,

Karl