[CALUG] Loading DSL onto Compact Flash.

[Hugh Brown]

On 8/18/06, Jason Dixon <jason at dixongroup.net> wrote:
>
> On Aug 18, 2006, at 11:35 AM, Hugh Brown wrote:
>
> > On 8/17/06, Jason Dixon <jason at dixongroup.net> wrote: On Aug 17,
> > 2006, at 2:27 PM, Peter Alexander wrote:
> >
> > > Hello,
> > >   I have been trying to configure a system that uses an SBC with an
> > > on-board CompactFlash card reader. I have been able to load
> > > Damn Small Linux (DSL) onto it but have not been able to get it to
> > > boot.
> > > Right now I've been using the Live-CD, to make
> > > configuration changes, but ultimately I would like to use a boot
> > > floppy
> > > and USB ThumbDrive to load linux onto the CF.
> > >
> > > I was able to find instructions on how to load Slackware onto a CF,
> > > but
> > > it has not been very useful since I'm trying to use DSL.
> >
> > You mean Linux won't just see the CF as an IDE drive?  I can fit an
> > entire OpenBSD installation in <180MB of space.  I just install from
> > the CDROM and it sees the CF just like any other drive.  If I want to
> > avoid writes to CF (not really necessary these days), I just mount a
> > MFS partition.
> >
> > We tried this at a former job (installing linux onto a cf card
> > which was in an ide-cf adapter) and it nuked the cf card because of
> > all the reads and writes.
> >
> > I did get a pared down knoppix to load onto cf but I had to alter
> > some files in the minitroot.gz so that it had appropriate drivers
> > (that may only have been for the usb drive though) and so that it
> > thought of the cf as the cdrom drive.  I'll see if I can find the
> > link that I worked from.  This was also all done with knoppix 3.4
> > (when it used syslinux instead of isolinux).
> >
> > I couldn't find the link (my data is three years old now though).
> > I believe DSL is/was based off knoppix to begin with.
>
> The write issue with CFs has long since been fixed.  Nevertheless, it
> continues to rage on as a myth.



I'm glad it's been fixed, I should have been more explicit on the
"timeliness" of my experience.  The problems/advice I gave were based on
experience(s) in early 2003.  If it was fixed back then, it's also possible
that we just had cheap cf.
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