Creating unix partitions on Compact Flash memory

[Alex Judd]

Hello list

I'm working on getting my Jornada to boot a linux partition off of my compact flash card however I'm having problems finding a suitable program to fdisk the partitions.

Mounting the card through a PCMCIA adapter and booting into Linux fdisk doesn't find the drive and no WInce based compact flash formatter I find can make Linux type partitions

Anyone got any good suggestions?

Regards

Alex

[Peter Gerwinski]

Post by Alex Judd
Mounting the card through a PCMCIA adapter and booting into Linux
fdisk doesn't find the drive [...]

This did work for me.

Peter

[Alex Judd]

After a significant amount of head bashing with Compact Flash cards and
Linux I now have my machine happily booting with Peter's tar ball releases
of Familiar Linux and his Kernel build so I thought I'd share a few lessons
from my trials.

1. Create all of your partitions on your CF card using Linux on a laptop.

Sounds obvious I know, but initially I was creating the partitions on the
disk (/dev/hde in my case) using Linux and then using Windows to format one
of the partitions. Doing this either Windows refused to format the partition
if Linux went first, and vice verse.

2. Make sure you get the right partition types

So, the correct way to do it is to make two partitions one type 6 and one
type 83 (your device may be at a different hd(x) location) and then to
format them with the right file system.

fdisk /dev/hde
mkdosfs /dev/hde1
mke2fs /dev/hde2

Thanks to Jacek for that.

3. Unpacking the tar balls

Mount your two CF card partitions to a suitable place

mkdir /pcmciados
mount /dev/hde1 /pcmciados
mkdir /pcmcialinux
mount /dev/hde2 /pcmcialinux

unpack the tar balls

tar -xvf /drivec/familiar/hdg1*.tar /pcmciados
tar -xvf /drivec/familiar/hdg2*.tar /pcmcialinux

4. Pop the card in the 720 and boot.

You'll need to change the 'Storage Card' to yours, and ensure the radio box
is the one on the far left (MC I think? My machines at home). That should
get it all working

5. Power saving & screen behaviour

I'm yet to build or get a prebuilt Kernel that supports any form of
shutdown, reboot or powersaving at the moment. From reading it is supported
in a limited extent so I plan to build from cvs and some point in the future
to find this.

Also, the screen appears to fade up to white if left alone for a while, and
also often produces a single red line strip across the screen during boot.
None of which appear to harm the device however I had to disconnect
batteries for a while to get rid of the boot line after one trial

So, feel free to mail me if anyone wants to know a bit more and thanks to
the rest of everyone for the help

Cheers

Alex

[Eduard Pertíñez i Juncosa]

Hi Alex (and everybody else),

I have a Jornada 720 and I'm crazy to install linux on it. For what I've
read in this email there are a couple of tarballs that create a "distro"
(Thanks god!).

I can help to document the process the same way I did for the Jornada
680, but I need to have these tarballs.

Does anybody knows what are those "Peter's tarballs" Alex is talking
about? (I think Alex is on hollidays, so anyone else will help).

Thank you very much,

Eduard

Post by Alex Judd
After a significant amount of head bashing with Compact Flash cards and
Linux I now have my machine happily booting with Peter's tar ball releases
of Familiar Linux and his Kernel build so I thought I'd share a few lessons
from my trials.
1. Create all of your partitions on your CF card using Linux on a laptop.
Sounds obvious I know, but initially I was creating the partitions on the
disk (/dev/hde in my case) using Linux and then using Windows to format one
of the partitions. Doing this either Windows refused to format the partition
if Linux went first, and vice verse.
2. Make sure you get the right partition types
So, the correct way to do it is to make two partitions one type 6 and one
type 83 (your device may be at a different hd(x) location) and then to
format them with the right file system.
fdisk /dev/hde
mkdosfs /dev/hde1
mke2fs /dev/hde2
Thanks to Jacek for that.
3. Unpacking the tar balls
Mount your two CF card partitions to a suitable place
mkdir /pcmciados
mount /dev/hde1 /pcmciados
mkdir /pcmcialinux
mount /dev/hde2 /pcmcialinux
unpack the tar balls
tar -xvf /drivec/familiar/hdg1*.tar /pcmciados
tar -xvf /drivec/familiar/hdg2*.tar /pcmcialinux
4. Pop the card in the 720 and boot.
You'll need to change the 'Storage Card' to yours, and ensure the radio box
is the one on the far left (MC I think? My machines at home). That should
get it all working
5. Power saving & screen behaviour
I'm yet to build or get a prebuilt Kernel that supports any form of
shutdown, reboot or powersaving at the moment. From reading it is supported
in a limited extent so I plan to build from cvs and some point in the future
to find this.
Also, the screen appears to fade up to white if left alone for a while, and
also often produces a single red line strip across the screen during boot.
None of which appear to harm the device however I had to disconnect
batteries for a while to get rid of the boot line after one trial
So, feel free to mail me if anyone wants to know a bit more and thanks to
the rest of everyone for the help
Cheers
Alex
_______________________________________________
jornada mailing list
http://handhelds.org/mailman/listinfo/jornada

[Peter Gerwinski]

Hello, Eduard and everyone,

Post by Eduard Pertíñez i Juncosa
I have a Jornada 720 and I'm crazy to install linux on it. For what I've
read in this email there are a couple of tarballs that create a "distro"
(Thanks god!).
I can help to document the process the same way I did for the Jornada
680, but I need to have these tarballs.

Here is what I wrote on 24 June 2002:

: since I am still having trouble with the current kernel, I decided
: to publish the stuff I already have:
:
: http://www.peter.gerwinski.de/hdg1-20020529.tar.gz (1372 kB)
: http://www.peter.gerwinski.de/hdg2-20020530.tar.gz (71224 kB)
:
: To play with it and see GNU/Linux/X11 booting on the Jornada
: 710/720, please create two partitions on a Compact Flash card,
: e.g. /dev/hdg1 with ~8MB and /dev/hdg2 occupying the rest. Format
: /dev/hdg1 such that WinCE can access it (e.g. VFAT) and /dev/hdg2 as
: ext3 (or ext2). To boot Linux, simply run `hpcboot.exe' from WinCE.
: You will get an X11 session as `root' with icewm plus another `root'
: session on the serial line (152000 bps). In X11, press `Alt+Shift+X'
: or `Alt+Shift+Y' for an `rxvt'.
:
: (I named my own Jornada "sojourner" and have chosen an appropriate
: background picture. PLEASE DO NOT give all your Jornadas the same
: name! IMO each one must have its own personality! :-)

Since then I did some minor modifications to my system, but they
might be useful for you. (In particular, PCMCIA cards can be used
now.)

You can download newer versions of the archives at:

http://www.peter.gerwinski.de/hdg1-20021204.tar.gz
boot partition, 2.9 MB

http://www.peter.gerwinski.de/hdg2-20021204.tar.gz
root partition, 77 MB

http://www.peter.gerwinski.de/initrd-20021204.gz
initrd to be compiled into the kernel, 788 kB

CAUTION: The .tar.gz files extract to the _current_ directory.

There is "root" plus two users "user500" and "user501", all with
empty passwords.

Booting messages are sent to the serial console. After booting,
a root `bash' remains on the serial console. On X11, there is an
icewm running for user "user500". With "Alt+Shift+X" and
"Alt+Shift+Y", you can open windows running rxvt.

The keyboard has a German layout.

Everything can be changed in /sbin/init which is a shell script.
(Use the serial root console if you are not familiar with the German
keyboard layout.)

Currently, the root partition is mounted as ext3. This might be a
bad idea due to the limited lifetime of flash cards. Perhaps it
would be better to mount it as ext2 and to tune2fs it in a way to
minimise write accesses.

Happy hacking,

Peter

[Alex Judd]

Peter

Thanks again for posting this information (I've been away since Eduard's
requests). I'm putting the new kernel in now but can you summarize what
state the power/shutdown

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Gerwinski" <***@gerwinski.de>
To: "Eduard Pertíñez i Juncosa" <***@netscape.net>
Cc: <***@handhelds.org>
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 10:06 PM
Subject: Re: [jornada] Update status of Linux onto Jornada 720

Post by Peter Gerwinski
Hello, Eduard and everyone,

Post by Eduard Pertíñez i Juncosa
I have a Jornada 720 and I'm crazy to install linux on it. For what I've
read in this email there are a couple of tarballs that create a "distro"
(Thanks god!).
I can help to document the process the same way I did for the Jornada
680, but I need to have these tarballs.

: since I am still having trouble with the current kernel, I decided
: http://www.peter.gerwinski.de/hdg1-20020529.tar.gz (1372 kB)
: http://www.peter.gerwinski.de/hdg2-20020530.tar.gz (71224 kB)
: To play with it and see GNU/Linux/X11 booting on the Jornada
: 710/720, please create two partitions on a Compact Flash card,
: e.g. /dev/hdg1 with ~8MB and /dev/hdg2 occupying the rest. Format
: /dev/hdg1 such that WinCE can access it (e.g. VFAT) and /dev/hdg2 as
: ext3 (or ext2). To boot Linux, simply run `hpcboot.exe' from WinCE.
: You will get an X11 session as `root' with icewm plus another `root'
: session on the serial line (152000 bps). In X11, press `Alt+Shift+X'
: or `Alt+Shift+Y' for an `rxvt'.
: (I named my own Jornada "sojourner" and have chosen an appropriate
: background picture. PLEASE DO NOT give all your Jornadas the same
: name! IMO each one must have its own personality! :-)
Since then I did some minor modifications to my system, but they
might be useful for you. (In particular, PCMCIA cards can be used
now.)
http://www.peter.gerwinski.de/hdg1-20021204.tar.gz
boot partition, 2.9 MB
http://www.peter.gerwinski.de/hdg2-20021204.tar.gz
root partition, 77 MB
http://www.peter.gerwinski.de/initrd-20021204.gz
initrd to be compiled into the kernel, 788 kB
CAUTION: The .tar.gz files extract to the _current_ directory.
There is "root" plus two users "user500" and "user501", all with
empty passwords.
Booting messages are sent to the serial console. After booting,
a root `bash' remains on the serial console. On X11, there is an
icewm running for user "user500". With "Alt+Shift+X" and
"Alt+Shift+Y", you can open windows running rxvt.
The keyboard has a German layout.
Everything can be changed in /sbin/init which is a shell script.
(Use the serial root console if you are not familiar with the German
keyboard layout.)
Currently, the root partition is mounted as ext3. This might be a
bad idea due to the limited lifetime of flash cards. Perhaps it
would be better to mount it as ext2 and to tune2fs it in a way to
minimise write accesses.
Happy hacking,
Peter
--
Software Patents = professional disbarment for programmers
http://swpat.ffii.org
_______________________________________________
jornada mailing list
http://handhelds.org/mailman/listinfo/jornada

[Alex Judd]

I yet to add this to our website, but the email below should get you going.

Regards

Alex

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alex Judd" <***@skywire.co.uk>
To: <***@handhelds.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2002 4:53 PM
Subject: [jornada] Update status of Linux onto Jornada 720

Post by Alex Judd
After a significant amount of head bashing with Compact Flash cards and
Linux I now have my machine happily booting with Peter's tar ball releases
of Familiar Linux and his Kernel build so I thought I'd share a few lessons
from my trials.
1. Create all of your partitions on your CF card using Linux on a laptop.
Sounds obvious I know, but initially I was creating the partitions on the
disk (/dev/hde in my case) using Linux and then using Windows to format one
of the partitions. Doing this either Windows refused to format the partition
if Linux went first, and vice verse.
2. Make sure you get the right partition types
So, the correct way to do it is to make two partitions one type 6 and one
type 83 (your device may be at a different hd(x) location) and then to
format them with the right file system.
fdisk /dev/hde
mkdosfs /dev/hde1
mke2fs /dev/hde2
Thanks to Jacek for that.
3. Unpacking the tar balls
Mount your two CF card partitions to a suitable place
mkdir /pcmciados
mount /dev/hde1 /pcmciados
mkdir /pcmcialinux
mount /dev/hde2 /pcmcialinux
unpack the tar balls
tar -xvf /drivec/familiar/hdg1*.tar /pcmciados
tar -xvf /drivec/familiar/hdg2*.tar /pcmcialinux
4. Pop the card in the 720 and boot.
You'll need to change the 'Storage Card' to yours, and ensure the radio box
is the one on the far left (MC I think? My machines at home). That should
get it all working
5. Power saving & screen behaviour
I'm yet to build or get a prebuilt Kernel that supports any form of
shutdown, reboot or powersaving at the moment. From reading it is supported
in a limited extent so I plan to build from cvs and some point in the future
to find this.
Also, the screen appears to fade up to white if left alone for a while, and
also often produces a single red line strip across the screen during boot.
None of which appear to harm the device however I had to disconnect
batteries for a while to get rid of the boot line after one trial
So, feel free to mail me if anyone wants to know a bit more and thanks to
the rest of everyone for the help
Cheers
Alex
_______________________________________________
jornada mailing list
http://handhelds.org/mailman/listinfo/jornada