Making Boot-Floppies for the IBM Transnote

This documents how to make custom debian boot floppies for the IBM TransNote. Most of this process is accomplished by patching the linux kernel or the Debian boot-floppies sources from CVS. If you are not familiar with patching kernels, compiling software(make, shell scripting), cvs, and basic C, you do not want to read this. Prebuilt boot floppies for the transnote are available here.

get debian boot-floppies sources from CVS

patch sources with XFSBootFloppies patch

cat cvs-diff.txt | patch -p0

This entire patch fails now. you can ignore all the changes in the doc directory, but you will have to hand edit the rest. use the .rej and .orig files to figure out what to do.

configure the boot floppies

edit boot-floppies/config

in file locations:

change the ftp_archive directory to /archive/debian

in Internationalization:

change USE_LANGUAGE_CHOOSER to false
change LC to false
change langs to C en

make check in the boot-floppies directory. Follow directions in boot-floppies/README to get the packages built

modify dbootstrap for use with a USB floppy root drive

edit utilites/dbootstrap/dbootstrap.h to add SCSI_FLOPPY support for x86

look for #elif #cpu (i386) and add the the following lines below it:


	    #define SCSI_FLOPPY

            void find_scsi_floppy (void);

edit utilites/dbootstrap/main.c to change the accepted type of floppy
drive to the model of the one that you own.
look for find_scsi_floppy change the Vendor and Model to match your usb floppy drive (you can get this information from /proc/scsi/scsi)

modify rescue.sh to not copy sys_map.gz and config.gz to the rescue floppy (we need the space for the kernel)


          info "copying in sys_map$subarch and
config$subarch"

          #cp sys_map${subarch}.gz $mnt/sys_map.gz

          #cp config${subarch}.gz $mnt/config.gz

modify rootdisk.sh

Since the USB drivers are needed at boot time they should be compiled directly into the kernel. Therefore the usb modules shouldn't be checked when creating the rootdisks. comment out the following lines in the rootdisk.sh


         include_module $mnt/lib/modules/$kver-bf2.4/kernel/drivers/usb/usbcore.o

         include_module $mnt/lib/modules/$kver-bf2.4/kernel/drivers/usb/usb-uhci.o

         include_module $mnt/lib/modules/$kver-bf2.4/kernel/drivers/usb/usb-ohci.o

         include_module $mnt/lib/modules/$kver-bf2.4/kernel/drivers/usb/usbkbd.o

         include_module $mnt/lib/modules/$kver-bf2.4/kernel/drivers/usb/usb-storage.o

download kernel-sources (apt-get install kernel-source-2.4.18)

patch sources with XFS patch

patch sources with usb_root_floppy patch

edit Makefile so EXTRAVERSION = -bf2.4-xfs

copy XFS boot-floppies config to .config

make menuconfig

build kernel with kpkg

make-kpkg -rev XFSCustom.1 kernel_image

download pcmcia-sources (apt-get install pcmcia-source)

configure build pcmcia package with kpkg

make-kpkg -rev XFSCustom.1 modules_config
make-kpkg -rev XFSCustom.1 modules

put kernel packages(kernel-image and pcmcia-modules) in the boot-floppies/updates directory

make release

this will fail while making xlp.tgz: error: cp: cannot stat xlp.tgz': No such file or directory

you now have a set of boot floppies in boot-floppies/release/images-1.44
files:
    rescue: rescuebf2.4-xfs.bin
    root: rootbf2.4-xfs.bin
    drivers: driverbf2.4-xfs-[123].bin

make boot-floppies using dd

insert rescue floppy into usb floppy drive attached to transnote

reboot transnote

at the boot: prompt type linux.bin usb_root_floppy=/dev/sda to install debian on your transnote

Making Boot-Floppies for the IBM Transnote

Patches:

Kernel:

Boot Floppies:

Steps: