how to use busybox to make a ramdisk?

how to use busybox to make a ramdisk?

[John Zhou]

Hi all,

I want to get some detail documents about how to use busybox to make a ramdisk!!  Does anybody know? Is it to use mkinitrd ?

Thanks & Regards
John Zhou

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Re: how to use busybox to make a ramdisk?

[Dan Kegel]

Brian Padalino wrote:
> ... there is also a good tutorial on how to create ramdisk images.
>
> http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/Bootdisk-HOWTO/buildroot.html
>
> The only thing that I do differently is that I use a loopback device like
> so:
>   mount -t ext2 filename /mnt/image -o loop
> This stops mount from complaining to me and I like that.

I highly recommend using genext2fs instead of a loopback mount;
that way you don't need to be root at all when making the image.

Stock genext2fs doesn't handle ramdisks bigger than 8MB, but
there are patches that fix this, and I've been using them happily
for about nine months.  (Maybe they're in the mainline now; not sure.)
- Dan

--
Dan Kegel
http://www.kegel.com
http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=78045


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Re: how to use busybox to make a ramdisk?

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <3F4F6819.1090002@kegel.com> you wrote:
>
> Stock genext2fs doesn't handle ramdisks bigger than 8MB, but
> there are patches that fix this, and I've been using them happily
> for about nine months.  (Maybe they're in the mainline now; not sure.)

A patched & extended version  (based  on  Erik  Andersen's  work)  is
included with the ELDK.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

--
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-4596-87  Fax: (+49)-8142-4596-88  Email: wd@denx.de
365 Days of drinking Lo-Cal beer.                       = 1 Lite-year

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RE: how to use busybox to make a ramdisk?

[Brian Padalino]

John,

I kind of cheated and used the DENX ELDK (http://www.denx.de) ramdisk that
came with his stuff (mainly for the /dev entries).

But there is also a good tutorial on how to create ramdisk images.

http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/Bootdisk-HOWTO/buildroot.html

The only thing that I do differently is that I use a loopback device like
so:
  mount -t ext2 filename /mnt/image -o loop
This stops mount from complaining to me and I like that.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Cheers,
Brian Padalino


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-linuxppc-embedded@lists.linuxppc.org
[mailto:owner-linuxppc-embedded@lists.linuxppc.org]On Behalf Of John
Zhou
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 5:54 AM
To: linuxppc-embedded@lists.linuxppc.org
Subject: how to use busybox to make a ramdisk?



Hi all,

I want to get some detail documents about how to use busybox to make a
ramdisk!!  Does anybody know? Is it to use mkinitrd ?

Thanks & Regards
John Zhou


** Sent via the linuxppc-embedded mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/

Re: how to use busybox to make a ramdisk?

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <3F4F70E5.7070202@kegel.com> you wrote:
>
> Handy.  I imagine the patches are in the ELDK SRPM for busybox.
> Where can I find that?  I poked around on the eldk site but

There is very little interest in SRPMs (actually you're the first  to
ask  :-) The easiest way to access the patches is from our CVS server
(modules eldk_build and eldk_tarballs):

build/cross_rpms/genext2fs/SOURCES/genext2fs-1.3-eldk.patch
build/cross_rpms/genext2fs/SOURCES/genext2fs_perms.patch
build/cross_rpms/genext2fs/SOURCES/genext2fs_symlink.patch
build/cross_rpms/genext2fs/SOURCES/genext2fs_1.3-4.patch
build/cross_rpms/genext2fs/SOURCES/genext2fs_1.3-4_fifo.patch
build/cross_rpms/genext2fs/SPECS/genext2fs.spec
tarballs/genext2fs_1.3-2.diff
tarballs/genext2fs_1.3.orig.tar.gz


Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

--
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-4596-87  Fax: (+49)-8142-4596-88  Email: wd@denx.de
It is not best to swap horses while crossing the river.
- Abraham Lincoln

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