Syslinux - Jun 2010 - EXTLINUX

I am trying to boot a ramdisk on a usb stick in read-only mode using 
extlinux. When the system boots all I am getting is a blinking cursor. 
The stick booted with lilo, but I had some issues with lilo so I am 
trying extlinux.

1) I partitioned the stick as a linux partition, formated it ext2, and 
mounted /dev/sda1 on /mnt/flash.
2) I am running extlinux 3.86.
3) excuted "extlinux -i  /mnt/flash"
4) created /mnt/flash/extlinux.conf
5) contents:
DEFAULT linux
prompt 1
timeout 1200
LABEL linux
KERNEL vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=initrd.img rw prompt_ramdisk=0 ramdisk_blocksize=1024 
ramdisk=2966000 root=/dev/ram0
6) excuted "cat mbr.bin > /dev/sda"
7) copied initrd.img and vmlinuz to /mnt/flash
8) umounted /mnt/flash

I know it sounds strange but I wanted to do the same with isolinux, but 
get the following error:
.
.
.
.
16384 ram181(driver?)
No filesystem could mount root, tried: romfs
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 
unknown-block(1,0)

Any ideas how might get this to work?

On 06/29/2010 10:57 AM, Collins, Cris wrote:
> I am trying to boot a ramdisk on a usb stick in read-only mode using 
> extlinux. When the system boots all I am getting is a blinking cursor. 
At what point?
> The stick booted with lilo, but I had some issues with lilo so I am 
> trying extlinux.
> 
> 1) I partitioned the stick as a linux partition, formated it ext2, and 
> mounted /dev/sda1 on /mnt/flash.
> 2) I am running extlinux 3.86.
> 3) excuted "extlinux -i  /mnt/flash"
> 4) created /mnt/flash/extlinux.conf
> 5) contents:
> DEFAULT linux
> prompt 1
> timeout 1200
> LABEL linux
> KERNEL vmlinuz
> APPEND initrd=initrd.img rw prompt_ramdisk=0 ramdisk_blocksize=1024 
> ramdisk=2966000 root=/dev/ram0
> 6) excuted "cat mbr.bin > /dev/sda"
> 7) copied initrd.img and vmlinuz to /mnt/flash
> 8) umounted /mnt/flash
Is your ext2 partition marked active?

You may want to try the new Syslinux 4.00 that was just released.
> I know it sounds strange but I wanted to do the same with isolinux, but 
> get the following error:
> .
> .
> .
> .
> 16384 ram181(driver?)
> No filesystem could mount root, tried: romfs
> Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 
> unknown-block(1,0)
> 
> Any ideas how might get this to work?
This means the kernel booted fine, it just isn't pointed to a valid root
filesystem.  Device 1,0 is /dev/ram, so I'm guessing you're missing your
initrd, or you have the wrong filesystem driver for your particular initrd.

	-hpa

"Collins, Cris" <cris.collins at gd-ais.com> writes:
> I am trying to boot a ramdisk on a usb stick in read-only mode using
> extlinux.
I guess you mean to boot a Linux kernel with an initrd from a read-only
usb stick.  Right?
> When the system boots all I am getting is a blinking cursor.
What messages are printed before that?  Beyond the usual BIOS stuff,
like testing memory and CPU/HDD types.
> 1) I partitioned the stick as a linux partition, formated it ext2, and
> mounted /dev/sda1 on /mnt/flash.
Did you make the partition active (that is, bootable) in fdisk?
> 2) I am running extlinux 3.86.
> 3) excuted "extlinux -i  /mnt/flash"
Did it create /mnt/flash/extlinux.sys?
> 4) created /mnt/flash/extlinux.conf
> 5) contents:
> DEFAULT linux
> prompt 1
> timeout 1200
> LABEL linux
> KERNEL vmlinuz
> APPEND initrd=initrd.img rw prompt_ramdisk=0 ramdisk_blocksize=1024
> ramdisk=2966000 root=/dev/ram0
> 6) excuted "cat mbr.bin > /dev/sda"
> 7) copied initrd.img and vmlinuz to /mnt/flash
> 8) umounted /mnt/flash
This sounds good.
> I know it sounds strange but I wanted to do the same with isolinux,
The same?!  Your usb stick is seen by your BIOS either as a HDD (in
which case the above procedure is correct), as a floppy or as a CD-ROM.
Isolinux is only applicable in the latter case, but then you mustn't
partition you usb stick.
> but get the following error:
>
> 16384 ram181(driver?)
> No filesystem could mount root, tried: romfs
> Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on
> unknown-block(1,0)
This means your kernel was loaded by some means, but I can't imagine
how.  The bootloader (extlinux or isolinux) should have printed a banner
and wait for the 120 second timeout or Enter.  Which was it?
-- 
Regards,
Feri.