can't build small enough zImage for floppy

can't build small enough zImage for floppy

[Jordan]

1st, the Sony Vaio Z505HS appears to be an example of a machine which
will not boot a bzImage correctly, compaining about the compression
format.

2nd, trying to build kernel 2.4.0, I stripped out or module-ized
everything I could (I think) including SCSCI support, the smallest I've
gotten zImage (under 600k) is still too big!

I don't know what else to try.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Jordan



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Re: can't build small enough zImage for floppy

[alex]

On Fri, Jan 12, 2001 at 03:48:23PM -0600, Jordan wrote:
> 1st, the Sony Vaio Z505HS appears to be an example of a machine which
> will not boot a bzImage correctly, compaining about the compression
> format.

I can say from experience that this is not the case.  In fact, the kernel 
binaries (RPM) I provide on my Z505 page (http://www.foogod.com/z505_linux) are 
bzImages (currently those are still test5, though I have used later ones on my 
own machine as well, and will probably be upgrading the page to 2.4.0 final 
eventually).  I will admit that I haven't tried booting them from a floppy.. 
perhaps this is where the problem lies.

The Z505HS does have a USB floppy drive, which is the only thing I can think 
of that's different from most other machines which might affect this, but I do 
know that that doesn't stop a 2.2 kernel from booting off of it (though there 
are problems accessing the floppy after the initial boot without USB drivers, 
of course)

I will look into building a 2.4.0 floppy-bootable kernel on my Z505 and see if 
I can reproduce the problems you're having.

-alex
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Re: can't build small enough zImage for floppy

[Manfred Bartz]

Jordan <jordang@pcc.net> writes:

> 1st, the Sony Vaio Z505HS appears to be an example of a machine which
> will not boot a bzImage correctly, compaining about the compression
> format.

Maybe you need to upgrade to a newer version of lilo?

> 2nd, trying to build kernel 2.4.0, I stripped out or module-ized
> everything I could (I think) including SCSCI support, the smallest I've
> gotten zImage (under 600k) is still too big!

Don't use ``make zImage'', use ``make bzImage'' (big zImage) amd the
size will be fine.
-- 
Manfred

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Re: can't build small enough zImage for floppy

[Jens Axboe]

On Fri, Jan 12 2001, Jordan wrote:
> 1st, the Sony Vaio Z505HS appears to be an example of a machine which
> will not boot a bzImage correctly, compaining about the compression
> format.

I have this exact model too, and it boots bzImage just fine. In fact,
I've never booted anything but bzImage's on it. Maybe a BIOS issue
that a fw upgrade will fix?

-- 
* Jens Axboe <axboe@suse.de>
* SuSE Labs
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Re: can't build small enough zImage for floppy

[alex]

On Sat, Jan 13, 2001 at 06:54:15AM -0600, Jordan wrote:
> alex@foogod.com wrote:
> 
> > I forgot to ask.. when attempting to boot from a floppy, are you using
> > SYSLINUX, or something else?  What version?
> 
> unsure.  I have booted floppies on my machine before which displayed SYSLINUX on
> boot, but the 2.4.0 kernel I compiled (on my Red Hat 6.2 with 2.2.14-5.0 Vaio
> Desktop) and used "make bzdisk" to make the disk, does not display SYSLINUX while
> booting.  It displays
> 
> Loading.........................................
> Uncompressing Linux...
> 
> invalid compressed format (err=21)
> 
> -- System Halted

Ah, this explains it.. the basic bootloader built into the kernel images is 
apparently not compatible with the Z505 (possibly because it doesn't like the 
BIOS emulation done to make the USB floppy look like a traditional floppy 
drive during boot).  I've never attempted this form of booting a kernel 
before, so I hadn't seen this behavior (of course this method also seems to 
have different problems booting on my desktop system, too, so..).  Had you 
managed to make a small enough zImage you would have had the same results.

My advice is to try using SYSLINUX 
(http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/) to load the kernel 
instead of writing it straight to the floppy, as this is known to work on the 
Z505 and is more flexible anyway.

-alex
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