[gNewSense-users] Re: creating gparted like usb-live stick for lemote mini-pc

[matti christensen]

i promised to write document of these experiments we have been doing  
with Fuloong 2F and gNewSense Metad - but here is something for the  
initrd issue;

GNS uses initrd that is actually a cpio archive = following commands  
help on modifying the initrd

-----------commands to extract the initrd.gz for modifying---------------

gunzip initrd.gz

mkdir somedirectory

cd somedirectory

cpio -id < ../initrd

-----------do your modifications here = add modules for usb and usbhid  
etc.----------

-----------commands to pack extracted directory structure to a  
modified initrd.gz---------

find . | cpio --create --format='newc' > ../initrd_modified

cd ..

gzip initrd_modified

-----------------end of commands to modify initrd.gz------------------

hope this gives something to go on with

as this is an email list of gNewSense, i must point out that the  
gNewSense community is about creating a fully open source distribution  
of GNU/Linux and one must pay attention to license terms

/mc


Quoting samy boutayeb <address@hidden>:

> Hola Javier,
>
> Le dimanche 30 janvier 2011 à 22:49 -0600, Javier Vasquez a écrit :
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have installed on lemote mini-pcs debian, so that I can select the
> > partitioning scheme I like, and I install just the SW I want.  But in
> > order to do it, I had to use gnew-sense installer, since I couldn't
> > make any debian one work on the mini-pcs...
>
> We reported on the gnewsense-users list
> ( http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnewsense-users/2011-01/index.html )
> our recent workaround for the installation of gnewsense on Lemote's
> Fuloong Mini.
> Using a new initrd and a customized partition sheme, you may install it
> at your convenience.
>
> Maybe you find useful information...
>
> Regards,
>
> Samy
>
>
> > Given some problems I found with the NIC and the USB controller, I'm
> > wondering if I should stick to the lemote squeeze version of debian.
> > Before jumping into that, to load a live usb session, whether to
> > install or whatever else, this mini-pcs use something similar to malta
> > apparently, just a kernel and an initrd which loads the live session,
> > nothing else...
> >
> > So I'm notsure how to create such initrd.  I sure can copy the
> > experimental kernel into a usb stick, I'm just missing how to generate
> > the initrd.  I've read about debian-live (ive-build, live-config,
> > etc), but it doesn't seem to provide what I'm looking for, which is
> > kind of gparted live usb stick...
> >
> > Well, the reason why I'm looking for this is that I'd like to try
> > installing for now the lemote debian distro (not official debian), and
> > see if ome problems I'm facing with official debian go away).  But I
> > really will have to create new partitions, resize some, and the like,
> > since I don't like the partitioning scheme lemote debian install
> > provides (it doesn't allow to choose anything BTW, one just sits and
> > waits until everything the initrd decides to do is complete), well,
> > with a bit of luck I'll get able to also change the default locale,
> > since I don't understand a bit of chinese, :-)
> >
> > Perhaps someone has gone this way, and can illustrate his way, :-)
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > --
> > Javier.




keep-IT-simple