Mounting the NFS rootfs over PCMCIA cards

[Andreas Klein]

Hello

I use for fai two bootdisk with lilo one for the kernel (a standard
debian 2.6.8) and one for the initial ramdisk. This works fine with my
pci network cards (I use this as a backup if the dhcp server is down).
Use the Parameter "load_ramdisk=1" to let it wait for the second disk.
mkinitramfs shoud do as a creator for the initrd (it is available in
debian testing). mkinitramfs uses busybox and this can do the dhcp and
the pivot-root. A one disk solution will properly not work with kernel
2.6 but with 2.4 you may have a chance.

Andreas Klein


On Tue, 9 May 2006 17:04:02 +0200
"BJörn Lindqvist" <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello! I'm trying to get a laptop to boot using a bootfloppy and then
> mount FAI:s nfsroot using a PCMCIA card. Unfortunately, this seem to
> be a terribly hard task to solve. I have searched the mailing list and
> many others have the same problem as me.
> 
> Problem 1: FAI:s default kernel doesn't include PCMCIA support so you
> need to compile your own kernel. But that's not all. Because the
> PCMCIA drivers can only be activated by executing some scripts from a
> file system, you also need an initrd ram disk. Problem 2: FAI doesn't
> need and doesn't use an initrd. Plus it needs to fit in 1024kb so it
> can be placed on a boot floppy.
> 
> So it is not exactly trivial and if it is possible (which, according
> to Thomas Lange, it might not be:
> http://archives.free.net.ph/message/20040521.055200.d191daa2.en.html)
> it requires some hacking.  Maybe something like:
> http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/linux/linux-kernel/2002-49/0912.html. Anyway
> I have started this wiki page:
> http://faiwiki.informatik.uni-koeln.de/index.php?title=Installing_laptops_with_PCMCIA_cards_using_a_floppy_disk
> in an attempt to solve this issue for me and to save it for future
> generations. So if anyone know how to do it, reply to this thread or
> write your findings at that page. I'll complete the howto with how it
> should be done when I find out.
> 
> --
> mvh Björn
>