are you running the 'cp -a' as root?
what linux distribution are you running?

mt

Hi,
Yes I ran the "cp -a" as root. My development PC is running RH V8 (8.0 3.2.7) the 2.4.20-20.8 kernel....

/michel

is the target filesystem the ext2 fs or the msdos fs?

per the instructions, the first partition of the 128MB CF Card is the ext2 fs (for the rootfs copy); the 2nd partion is the msdos partition - for the boot image.

I partitioned the CF card into approximately equal 64MB halves.

/michel

it kinda looks like you're trying to copy to the msdos
partition because msdos parts can't handle symlinks.
i dont have any idea why you'd get that error on an
ext2 filesystem. could you paste the output from 'cat /proc/mounts'?

hmm, I just looked at the /proc/mounts and the partition is of type "vfat", that's probably the problem?

/dev/sda1 /mnt/sandisk vfat rw 0 0

/michel

yep. that's kinda wierd, especially if you'd already
done a 'mke2fs /dev/sda1' ?! then 'mount -t ext2 /dev/sda1 /mnt/sandisk'
maybe your sda device is another disk in your machine, and not the CF
reader? in which case you probably do NOT want to do the above command(!)

mt

Well, I wasn't mounting it with "-t ext2" but when I try to mount it that way:
mount -t ext2 /dev/sda1 /mnt/sandisk/
I get this:
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda1,
or too many mounted file systems
and via dmesg:
EXT2-fs: sd(8,1): couldn't mount because of unsupported optional features (1330000).

From fdisk:

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sda: 8 heads, 32 sectors, 980 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 256 * 512 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 513 65648 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 * 514 980 59776 6 FAT16

it looks like you skipped the mke2fs step, and the (vfat) filesystem
that was on the card before you re-partitioned it remains. you have
to creat a ext2fs on the card before you can mount it as an ext2;
if you're absolutely certain that /dev/sda is the CF card:
mke2fs /dev/sda1

mt

Well, I recreated the ext2 fs again and this time it worked better. Not sure what I did to screw it up before.

/michel

well, maybe not so good. the kernel is still failing to boot cleanly. Here's what's displayed on the minicom terminal:

losh> load elf VMLINUX
loading from /f/VMLINUX:
R...........
elf file type : 0x0002
machine type: 0028 version: 1
prog start addr : 0x200c8000
num prog headers: 1
num sect headers: 10
offset : 0x00008000 disk length: 0x00157c73 mem len: 0x0017f39c
phyaddr: 0x200c8000 vaddr : 0x200c8000 dl addr: 0x200c8000

The kernel output:

losh> exec root=/dev/hda1
kernel cmdline: 'root=/dev/hda1' at 200c0100
Linux version 2.4.17-rmk2-lineo5 (root@linuxdev) (gcc version 2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #4 Fri Nov 7 16:3
7:14 UTC 2003
Processor: ARM ARM720T revision 3
Architecture: LogicPD LH79520 Card Engine
On node 0 totalpages: 8192
zone(0): 8192 pages.
zone(1): 0 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
Kernel command line: console=ttyAM1,115200 root=/dev/hda1
setup_timer(): timerLoad=32256
Console: colour dummy device 80x30
Calibrating delay loop... 25.70 BogoMIPS
Memory: 32MB = 32MB total
Memory: 14288KB available (1204K code, 252K data, 76K init)
Dentry-cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 2048 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Buffer-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
Starting kswapd
ttyAM0 at MEM 0xfffc0000 (irq = 23) is a AMBA PrimeCell PL011
ttyAM1 at MEM 0xfffc1000 (irq = 24) is a AMBA PrimeCell PL011
ttyAM2 at MEM 0xfffc2000 (irq = 25) is a AMBA PrimeCell PL011
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 30x40
LH79520 Watchdog Timer: timer margin 60 sec
block: 64 slots per queue, batch=16
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 8192K size 1024 blocksize
hd: no drives specified - use hd=cyl,head,sectors on kernel command line
hd?: check_status: status=0xd0 { Busy DriveReady SeekComplete }
hda: 122MB, CHS=980/8/32
Partition check:
hda:hda: check_status: status=0xd0 { Busy DriveReady SeekComplete }
hda: check_status: status=0xd0 { Busy DriveReady SeekComplete }
hda1 hda2
eth0: SMC91C11xFD(rev:1) at 0xf4800000 IRQ:4 DMA:0 (16-bit) MEM:8192b NOWAIT:1
eth0: ADDR: 00:08:ee:00:10:22
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
IP: routing cache hash table of 512 buckets, 4Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 2048 bind 2048)
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.95 (c) 1998-1999 Rebel.com
RAMDISK: Couldn't find valid RAM disk image starting at 0.
Freeing initrd memory: 16384K
EXT2-fs warning: mounting unchecked fs, running e2fsck is recommended
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
Freeing init memory: 76K
Warning: unable to open an initial console.
Kernel panic: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel.


Any ideas?

Thanks,
/michel

looks like the whole filesystem didn't get created (there should be a /bin/init on it.)
maybe you didn't unmount the card before pulling it out of the CF reader?
did the 'cp -a' complete successfully? is there a /bin/init on the card if you re-mount it?

mt

There's no /bin/init directory in the rootfsdir created from the
make -f Makefile.bdk firsttime
make -f Makefile.bdk deploy
nor after
make -f Makefile.bdk kernel

There's an rootfsdir/etc/rc.d/init.d but that's it

Can you send me a directory hierarchy for the rootfsdir?

/michel

I discovered that when I am copying the files over to the CF card, I am getting some errors on the symobolic links. For instance in the /bin dir all of the symobolic links to busybox or tinylogin are failing with this example error:

cp: cannot stat `/mnt/sandisk/bin/zcat': Input/output error

same with the files in the /dev directory and any other where there are links.

that's really strange. the linux partition on the CF card
should behave like any normal ext2 filesystem. maybe
try searching some of the linux redhat/usb/cf-relavent mailing
lists to see if anyone else has the same problem.

mt