pcmcia compact flash?

[bikerrat]

Will plop support boot from pcmcia compact flash?

[Elmar]

currently not, do you have a hardware example?

[vesalocal]

currently not, do you have a hardware example?

Cisco used "Flashdisk PCMCIA PC CARD ATA".  Or just simple CF-cards with a
"CompactFlash PC Card Adapter".

I can send hardware ;-)

Regards
Andreas

[bikerrat]

My X31 Thinkpad has a pcmcia compact flash reader built in. It would be interesting to boot from it with 8gb 133X compact flash cards available for $20 on the internet.

[Compact]

Well me too was searching a loooong time to boot from Compact Flash
from my old Dell Inspiron 3000 with an CF adapter. There are boot
floppies for Damn Small linux and I had succes with, I thought,
Slitaz and loadlin (?)(or equivalent?). But none of these ways were really
satisfying and surely not general or working for other distro's.
The most promising Boot Manager in the CF pcmcia field appears to be
PLOP.
CF pcmcia adapters are really very cheap. I used a DeLock one bought at
Reichelt.de for 3.40 euro.
And some small distro's like Slitaz, Puppy, Tine Core Linux and
Geexbox etc. do easily fit on a single 1Gb card. Even on a cheap
CF card these distro's boot rather fast in a IDE/CF adapter in a
IDE slot on a normal mainboard. And faster cards do boot even faster.
It's also very nice to have no extended parts hanging out of your
laptop.
So my question is: Will there be any chance that PLOP Boot Manager
will include CF adapters with CF-cards at some time ?
Sorry if I ask for the impossible for I'am not a programmer.

Great respect and thanks for develloping PLOP Boot Manager.

Friendly Greetings, Compact

[Elmar]

vesalocal sent me 2 cards, but i had not time. i am busy with some other projects. but i hope i can add this feature soon

regards
elmar

[Compact]

Hey Elmar,

Thanks you for your fast reply and sharing your hope.
If this can be of any help (at some time) I'll send you a Delock CF pcmcia adapter
and a Kingston CF 128Mb card. Just let me know.
I wish you much succes and progress with your current projects.

Friendly Greetings, Compact

[Compact]

Hey,

In the meantime I found out that booting from pcmcia-cf will not be so great
at all for a bigger OS for the max. speed of pcmcia seems only ~ 1,5Mb/s. Cardbus-cf is
much faster. And so is USB 2.0. So pcmcia booting only seems very fine for floppy image
booting and very small distro's. Unless you have time to wait ........

I also found KEXEC as a kind of linux equivalent for DOS Loadlin and Linld that make
booting of pcmcia possible. In that aspect I'd like to mention kexec-loader and
NetbootCD for those who are interested and want to experiment with the possibilities
of today. Kexec can handle kernels and grub directly but not memdisk though.

Booting is one thing. Completely loading and running is another thing. For most of the
today distro's don't seem to recognise where they are booting from and stop loading with
errors. At least, if your bios doesn't support usb or cardbus/pcmcia booting.
So far I only had direct 'out of the box' and with 'USB2.0' succes with Vector 6; patched
TinyCore from NetbootCD and floppy images that load and run via memdisk. But mostly
you need to alter things to make things load and run. There are many different solutions
on the web for specific distro's.

I hope my investigations can be of use for someone to get any idea about booting from
pcmcia-cf.

Friendly Greetings, Compact

[Elmar]

So far I only had direct 'out of the box' and with 'USB2.0' succes with Vector 6; patched
TinyCore from NetbootCD and floppy images that load and run via memdisk. But mostly
you need to alter things to make things load and run. There are many different solutions
on the web for specific distro's.

it seems, you never tried plop linux

regards
elmar

[vesalocal]

In the meantime I found out that booting from pcmcia-cf will not be so great
at all for a bigger OS for the max. speed of pcmcia seems only ~ 1,5Mb/s. Cardbus-cf is
much faster. And so is USB 2.0. So pcmcia booting only seems very fine for floppy image
booting and very small distro's. Unless you have time to wait ........

How often do you boot your systems?
If that is  20 times a day, this may be an issue.
I do every 20 days, so what?

I'd be *really* happy to boot from PCMCIA ;-)

[Compact]

How often do you boot your systems?
If that is  20 times a day, this may be an issue.
I do every 20 days, so what?
I'd be *really* happy to boot from PCMCIA ;-)

It's not only for booting every program you load after booting will load rather slow.
But if you are running only 1 program this seems to me as "no problem " indeed.
There are more than enough usefull ways to make use of pcmcia-cf.
So I'd be very glad too if there would be a more general way to do this instead of using
loadlin, linld and kexec.

[Compact]

it seems, you never tried plop linux

Hey Elmar,

Another issue for older hardware is lightweightness.
At the moment I'm investigating Pentium 1 233Mhz with 128Mb ram and 4Mb HD.
What distro will run smoothly and doesn't need too much space on HD ?
And what will boot from a 'not by bios bootable' cardbus USB2.0-card with stick ?
And what can boot from pcmcia-compact flash with loadlin, linld and kexec ?
So first I test the mem-usage of a distro in VMware Player.
And I like to share with you the results of Plop Linux.

ploplinux-4.1.1-X.iso (~ 655 Mb):
VMWare Mem (without swap!)     runs  used mem    -/+ buffers/cache
128Mb Plop Linux Cli                  &     106744         24408
128Mb Plop Linux Fluxbox           &     107504         40280
128Mb Plop Linux Gnome            x
96Mb Plop Linux Cli                   &     74660          22928
96Mb Plop Linux Fluxbox            &x    74740          38828 (runs, but not too well)
96Mb Plop Linux Gnome             x
80Mb Plop Linux Cli                   &     58792           22260
80Mb Plop Linux Fluxbox            x
64Mb Plop Linux Cli                   x (loading hangs)

ploplinux-4.1.1.iso (~ 76 Mb)
VMWare Mem (without swap!)     runs  used mem    -/+ buffers/cache
64Mb Plop Linux Cli                  &      42060          18784
48Mb Plop Linux Cli                  x (loading hangs)

Absolute Desktop winners are TinyCore, Slitaz-lowramcd that still gave
you a desktop with 48Mb ram in VMWare.
About Connochaet I'm not sure but I think 48-64Mb will do for its desktop.
Puppy; AntiX; Papug and Rescatux needed 80Mb for a desktop.
Vector 6 live needed 96Mb.
TCL, Slitaz and Puppy gave the best and fastest user experience.
Connochaet is too big and not very handsome for a multiboot install.
But I think this is a very nice one too.
GALPon MiniNo gave cd starting problems so I could't examin this one.
AntiX; Papug; Rescatux and Vector 6 became already too slow compared with the others.
And of course there is still FreeDOS. Wauw what a speed !
Also the Ultimate Boot CD without Pmagic and Antivir run very fine.
Very incredible desktops are KolibriOs and MenuetOS. Written in assembler
you can see what this can do on 1 single floppy ! But they are still in developpement.
All together TCL + Slitaz + Puppy + UBCD + Freedos + some freedos floppies
+ Kolibri + MenuetOS + PlopBM. Run 'multiboot' very fine on this machine and take
less than ~ 700Mb. With ~ 256Mb swap there is still ~ 3Gb left for data.

So I'm sorry Elmar. I'm afraid a Plop Linux Desktop is a bit too heavy for these machines.
But I sure did test ploplinux-4.1.1.iso wether it will boot with Plop Boot Manager.
And really it boots 'right out of the box' and very fine from a cardbus USB2.0 with stick.
Plop Linux contains handy utils! Thank you.

Friendly Greetings, Compact

[Elmar]

So I'm sorry Elmar. I'm afraid a Plop Linux Desktop is a bit too heavy for these machines.
But I sure did test ploplinux-4.1.1.iso wether it will boot with Plop Boot Manager.
And really it boots 'right out of the box' and very fine from a cardbus USB2.0 with stick.
Plop Linux contains handy utils! Thank you.

i say plop linux, because it boots without problems from pcmcia. the X version comes with a nearly complete gnome environment. so yes, with gnome its not lightweight, because gnome is big.

however, the usage of ram says only how much ram is used by the system. linux caches everything that is possible to give fast access. so when much ram is used, it does not say that the system really needs the complete ram. when you make a "find /" then the ram usage will grow, but that does not mean that the whole ram is really needed. with less ram, only less will be cached.

it looks like, you have enough distros, i am sure you will find the best for needs.

[vesalocal]

[It's not only for booting every program you load after booting will load rather slow.
But if you are running only 1 program this seems to me as "no problem " indeed.

Simply load your programs into RAM!
There is only one loading, just after loading the kernel.

   

[Compact]

Simply load your programs into RAM!
There is only one loading, just after loading the kernel.

Completely true if you got enough ram and seldom boot.
700mb booting and loading must be at least ~ 7-8 minutes.
But not all 'old' hardware you can put that much ram in.
And not everyone boots once in 20 days.
The smaller the better counts then if you want some comfort.
But even than there is enough to enjoy booting from pcmcia-cf 
You'd be better of with a cardbus-cf adapter for the
bigger distro's and programs. But I saw that they are hard to obtain and if
for prices round 40 euro and that's a bit much for older PC's.

[vesalocal]

Completely true if you got enough ram and seldom boot.
700mb booting and loading must be at least ~ 7-8 minutes.
But not all 'old' hardware you can put that much ram in.

Try Damn Small Linux on a 486 with 32MB RAM - works real nice.
So you don't have to load a complete 700 MB distribution ;-)
With slow boot loading I customize my ramdisk image and load only
what I need.

You'd be better of with a cardbus-cf adapter for the
bigger distro's and programs. But I saw that they are hard to obtain and if
for prices round 40 euro and that's a bit much for older PC's.

Did you ever came across one for ISA bus?
Or an ISA-USB adaptor?  A few of the latter were sold - USB 1.0
There is just PCMCIA...

[Compact]

it looks like, you have enough distros

Yes I downloaded quit a lot 'so-called' lightweights only to find a few really useable for these pc specifications. Hope this info can be of use for someone else too ?
Thanks for your reply and keep up your good work 
Plop is a wonderfull.

Friendly Greetings, Compact

[Compact]

Try Damn Small Linux on a 486 with 32MB RAM - works real nice.

Yes I also tried out DSL and it worked very fine. You could even boot from pcmcia with a special floppy.
But DSL is now for more than 3 years dormant or dead and it's successor is TinyCore (10mb!). TCL, Slitaz and
Puppy are fully alive and reasonable actual with software and they work pretty good with P1 233Mhz 128Mb ram specs.
But i also want to test a p166 with 48Mb ram and that is a complete other story. In that region there is no usb2.0 nor cardbus
possible And I don't think that even these most "lightweight and Alive" distro's do work anymore. And I also have to go back in history with also a try on Feather, Deli, Beatrix, Luit, Olive and so on.

With slow boot loading I customize my ramdisk image and load only
what I need.

Respect for you. For I still didn't edit an initrd.gz !
Frankly speaking. I'm still a dumb ass. Only comparing, trying and booting on older hardware. Quite some work though.

There is just PCMCIA...

Yes there is only pcmcia and the 32bit version of the pcmcia pc card standard is called Cardbus with a fairly higher speed.
Perhaps somewhat comparable with usb1 and usb2 ? My Dell inspiron 3000 (233Mhz) can have both. But I think older laptops only had
the 16bit version of the pcmcia standard.
The outside differences are 8 notches and a more little slideropening at 1 connector-side on the cardbus card. You can put a cardbus card
in a 16bit pcmcia slot. But not a 16bits card in a cardbus-only slot.
I don't think that cardbus-cf cards became that popular as the 16bits pcmcia cards for I only found 3:
- Viking Interworks 32-Bit Cardbus CF Compact Flash PCMCIA PC card
- Delkin Compact Flash Pro UDMA 45MB_sec PCMCIA CardBus 32 Adapter
- Lexar CompactFlash - 32Bit PC CardBus Adapter

[vesalocal]

But i also want to test a p166 with 48Mb ram and that is a complete other story. In that region there is no usb2.0 nor cardbus
possible And I don't think that even these most "lightweight and Alive" distro's do work anymore.

Well, the kernel is simply too large. Customize your own 2.6.x kernel, put in a PCI-USB2.0 adaptor
card and you're done.
Or go back to an older distibution with a 2.4.xx kernel (DSL was one).

There are PCI slots on your board and you can use an USB2.0 adaptor.
I can't, no PCI but ISA.

I don't think that cardbus-cf cards became that popular as the 16bits pcmcia cards for I only found 3:
- Viking Interworks 32-Bit Cardbus CF Compact Flash PCMCIA PC card
- Delkin Compact Flash Pro UDMA 45MB_sec PCMCIA CardBus 32 Adapter
- Lexar CompactFlash - 32Bit PC CardBus Adapter

You got me wrong: there are no cardbus adaptor cards I could use in an ISA slot
but PCMCIA adaptor cards are available and work fine.
So I stated "There is just PCMCIA", no CardBus.

Don't know of any ISA-CardBus adaptors - maybe they don't exist.

To get on topic again: PLOP supports booting from USB, but not from
PCMCIA/CardBus (yet). 

[Compact]

How DSL and pcmcia-cf "booting" works for me without hardware-floppy with kexec:
(I'm so sorry for the long story !)

Because kexec can't handle memdisk. And grub doesn't seem to recognise any
'not by bios drive' I had to unpack the boot.img from the dsl-4.4.10-syslinux.iso and start
from there with one of the command parameters in syslinux.cfg wich you can import in the
kexec parameter line. This boots and loads DSL from pcmcia-cf.
But still you get a limited prompt if you don't use the hardware pcmcia-floppy.
DSL otherwise can't find KNOPPIX.
Even a Plop pcmcia boot will not overcome this.

This is the kexec script I used (but you have to change your own paths and --append):

sudo mount -o loop -t vfat /dev/hde1 /mnt/hde1
sudo /mnt/hda2/boot/tcl/kexec/kexec -l /mnt/hde1/KNOPPIX/linux24 --initrd=/mnt/hde1/KNOPPIX/minirt24.gz --append="xmodule=fbdev quiet frompcmcia ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce noapic BOOT_IMAGE=KNOPPIX"
sudo sync
sudo swapoff -a
sudo umount -a
sudo /mnt/hda2/boot/tcl/kexec/kexec -e

I'm not too sure about line 3,4 and 5 but added them for safety. And the cf-card was FAT32 formatted. Fat16 gave no problems too.
Also EXT2 worked out fine without -t vfat in the first line.
Perhaps I also needed to change knoppix in KNOPPIX in the kexec commandline ?

If you don't want that hardware pcmcia-floppy you first got to (un)pack and change linuxrc:
sudo mount -o loop minirt24 /xxxx/xxxx
I placed a # mark before 2 lines like this:
# mount -t vfat -o ro /dev/fd0 /additional_modules >/dev/null 2>&1
# umount /additional_modules 2>/dev/null
I put the pcmcia dir from the floppy in additional_modules --> /additional_modules/pcmcia/*.*
And gave de pcmcia dir and all files in it all permissions and made them executable (for ease) otherwise things still do not work.
sudo umount /xxxx/xxxx

My first attempt was to use kexec-loader. But my Texas Instruments PCI-1131 pcmcia/cardbus bridge was unfortuneatly not recognised.
So I happely stumbled upon Netbootcd (TinyCore) that also has kexec compiled in the kernel.
TinyCore finds the pcmcia hardware very well eventually with the 'laptop' parameter.
I downloaded tc+nb.iso.
Got the kexec binary out of the NetBoot part and placed it in a map so that also
TinyCore from the same iso can use it. Now I first got to boot this TinyCore from hd to be able to
'boot' from pcmcia-cf. Not so fast and ideal but it works. Kexec-loader would have been a faster option though.

Strange thing. I do have pcmcia booting working. But usb ? No way ! Same files, same directory structure.
fromusb and frompcmcia parameters didn't come trough. Also not with Plop pcmcia-usb. I only get the limited prompt.
Apparently DSL has less problems with pcmcia recognition than with usb ! Some kind of "wait" parameter for usb seems not
to be documented or I don't know it, perhaps that will be te reason ?
Also with loadlin and linld I had no succes with DSL booting from pcmcia-cf after trying it out for a loooong time.
At least ...... in my case.

Plop can boot syslinux directly from usb and so you can even have multiboot; splash screens; help screens
and the boot options from the original iso. What a comfort; nice and beautiful !
This seems not possible with kexec.
But you can make some different scripts under linux for the different boot options that are originally in syslinux.cfg .....
It really "boots" very nice from pcmcia-cf ! Boottime ~ 80 seconds (unoptimised!) right out of TinyCore.

Next thing I'm gonna try is to automate things a bit more with Microcore  and startup scripts so that there can be
a more comfortable syslinux menu with what to "boot" from pcmcia-cf ...........
Gonna use the original microcore with the kernel and kexec of NetbootCD for that. But for now I don't
know wether this will succeed and when. Perhaps there might also come a Plop version for booting from pcmcia-cf ?
This will make things a whole lot easier and mucho faster.
Don't know if Elmar already found some time or sense to look and sniff at pcmcia-cf ?
All respect if Elmar didn't ! But I'm really curious.

@Vesalocal:
Did you ever try a cf-to-ide adapter (~3 euro) on the ide connector of an ISA card ?
If it works it works very nice and you don't need the above kexec mentioned. Works the same as a harddisk.
You may have more speed; it's noiseless; you spare energy. Pretty cool and modern for an old computer !
Harddisk detection in bios gives up nicely the cylinders, sectors and heads (where ever they may be ? hahaha ) of a cf card
on my "non ISA" ide interface
So if there is no harddisk detection in your bios you might have to figure that one out first with an other computer
or utility or so.
Another answer: PCI v2.2 USB2.0 will not work on PCI v2.1

Friendly Greetings, Compact

[Elmar]

sudo sync
sudo swapoff -a
sudo umount -a

I'm not too sure about line 3,4 and 5 but added them for safety. And the cf-card was FAT32

when you swapoff, then everything of the swap ram that is not written will be written. the same is with umount. those 2 commands do a sync for their stuff.

i dont understand why you turn off the swap and try to unmount all drives.

btw. when you do a "sudo bash" then you dont always have to sudo

Perhaps there might also come a Plop version for booting from pcmcia-cf ?
This will make things a whole lot easier and mucho faster.
Don't know if Elmar already found some time or sense to look and sniff at pcmcia-cf ?
All respect if Elmar didn't ! But I'm really curious.

yes it will come. i vesalocal sent me 2 cards (over 1/2 year ago) and i have one of my own in front of me on my desk. the cards are still waiting

best regards
elmar

[Compact]

i dont understand why you turn off the swap and try to unmount all drives.

I'm afraid my knowledge is not that big.
Found these three lines on the web and did't know wich one to use.
So I wrote them all.
If you mean a sync is enough.
Than, of course, I'd better skip the other 2 lines.

the cards are still waiting

I'm glad to hear the cards are still waiting
For this means the idea is not vanished.
This is good news. 
Thank you for the update.

Friendly greetings, Compact

[Elmar]

If you mean a sync is enough.

you only have to do "sudo umount /mnt/hde1"

regards
elmar

[vesalocal]

@Vesalocal:
Did you ever try a cf-to-ide adapter (~3 euro) on the ide connector of an ISA card ?
If it works it works very nice and you don't need the above kexec mentioned. Works the same as a harddisk.

Yes, I use a CF card in IDE mode.
You are right, they behave like a SSD or HDD and they don't need any
boot manager and they don't need PLOP.
But all my adaptors are not designed for frequent exchange of CF cards
and are located inside the casing.  So I'd prefer PCMCIA...

[Compact]

you only have to do "sudo umount /mnt/hde1"

Thanks for your advice Elmar.
I replaced the 3 lines with your one.

dsl.sh now looks like this:
sudo mount -o loop -t vfat /dev/hde1 /mnt/hde1
sudo /mnt/hda2/boot/tcl/kexec/kexec -l /mnt/hde1/KNOPPIX/linux24 --initrd=/mnt/hde1/KNOPPIX/minirt24.gz --append="xmodule=fbdev quiet frompcmcia ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off mydsl=hde2 vga=791 nomce noapic BOOT_IMAGE=KNOPPIX"
sudo umount /dev/hde1
sudo /mnt/hda2/boot/tcl/kexec/kexec -e

In the meantime I managed to 'boot' from pcmcia via a syslinux menu on hd.
this is the dsl.cfg I used (I personally load it with config.c32):

default tinycore
label tinycore
kernel /boot/tcl/kexec.bzI
append initrd=/boot/tcl/tinycore.gz text tce=hda2/boot/tcl/kexec/dsl vga=791 noswap nodhcp noutc nozswap quiet

It starts TinyCore in text mode.
I made an extra tce dir so that TC doesn't load all the stuff it normally loads.
If you boot with this cfg for the first time you get a prompt. Now you can edit /opt/bootsync.sh
so that it will start the dsl-kexec-script (dsl.sh) for future boots.

sudo vi /opt/bootlocal.sh

I added the following line:
/mnt/hda2/boot/tcl/kexec/dsl/dsl.sh

You can now save this customisation with:
filetool.sh -b
Mydata.gz; dsl.sh and dsl.cfg are now the only files in the new tce dir and will be used for next boot.

To gain more bootspeed I also commented out a little bit more in linuxrc:

# echo "${YELLOW}Please insert the PCMCIA module disk.${NORMAL}"
# if test -n "$INTERACTIVE"; then
#    echo ""
#    echo "${NORMAL}When loading additional modules from a modules disk,${NORMAL}"
#    echo "${NORMAL}please make sure to reinsert the PCMCI card after${NORMAL}"
#    echo "${NORMAL}the modules have been loaded.${NORMAL}"
#    echo ""
# fi
#
# echo "${CYAN}Make sure that the PCMCIA card is connected and press <RETURN>${NORMAL}"
# read a
# mount -t vfat -o ro /dev/fd0 /additional_modules >/dev/null 2>&1 /additional_modules >/dev/null 2>&1

and

# umount /additional_modules 2>/dev/null


DSL boots in totally ~1.40 minutes from pcmcia now with 1 key press in a syslinux menu.
From these ~100 seconds ~30 seconds are for the tc-booting-part.

So far I had no succes booting: Slitaz; Geexbox; Movix; Puppy Wary; Vector 6 and ....... Plop Linux from pcmcia-cf.
Plop Linux does recognise pcmcia but not a cf-card for it gives up: No drive found.
And of course I couldn't try out anything that makes use of memdisk ..... an eventual PlopBM version for pcmcia-cf
could change that for PlopBM boots syslinux.

@Vesalocal
I personally use a removeable rack and a ide-to-cf adapter.
It's a nice box to keep your cf-cards in at the same time !
I do exchange the cards quite often and it works pretty good.
I'm not so fond of the back of a computer to put something in
frequently and 16bit pcmcia-cf will never equal ide.
With kexec you can see for yourself which distro's will boot 'out of the box' with PlopBM 4 pcmcia-cf.

Friendly greetings, Compact

[Compact]

-= Kexec-Booting pcmcia-cf with extracted ploplinux-4.1.2-i486.iso/tgz =-

Plop Linux does find the PCMCIA card inserted in slot 0
and searches for ide & usb devices ...........
but on the end also PLOP linux 4.1.2 gives up: no drive found

Last time I informed was about PLOP linux 4.1.1. I forgot to mention the version-number.
Maybe also this 'update-info' is usefull ?

-= pcmcia cardbus 32bit compact flash adapters =-
Does anyone know wether these cards are well supported under Linux ?
I get the general idea they are NOT and only the 16bit pcmcia-cf versions work pretty good. Am I mistaken ? Does anyone have experience with one ?

Friendly Greetings, Compact

[slbgz]

My X31 Thinkpad has a pcmcia compact flash reader built in. It would be interesting to boot from it with 8gb 133X compact flash cards available for $20 on the internet.

Hi, I'm interested in Thinkpad x2*- Thinkpad x3* bootable compact flash slot too. ))
In my Thinkpad x24 CF slot is on Ricoh R/RL/5C476(II) or Compatible CardBus Controller,
look here: http://dc456.4shared.com/download/vEO8mKu0/tsid20111206-125040-1e235f34/scr2.PNG

[slbgz]

Please, add to PLOP manager PCMCIA to IDE boot option, if it is possible. ))

[Compact]

Hey Elmar,

Booting and loading plopkexec version 0.3 from hd or cdrom both give a kernel panic on a Dell Inspiron 3000 233Mhz i586 148Mb ram.
It looks very promising on my Athlon PC. Compliments ! But unfortuneatly that is not the one that is in need of a kexec loader.

That's why I just posted on the NetBootCD forum how to adapt NetBootCD for only local kexec booting.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1348897&page=4
Plopkexec and Plop Boot Manager look much smaller and faster though and I don't know wether Plopkexec is suited for pcmcia-cf booting ? NetBootCD seems quite allright for kexec-booting from pcmcia-cf now........ hopefully only in the meantime  .........

Friendly Greetings, Compact

[Elmar]

Booting and loading plopkexec version 0.3 from hd or cdrom both give a kernel panic on a Dell Inspiron 3000 233Mhz i586 148Mb ram.

can you make a digital photo of the screen?

Plopkexec and Plop Boot Manager look much smaller and faster though and I don't know wether Plopkexec is suited for pcmcia-cf booting ?

its no big deal to add pcmcia-cf support to plopkexec

best regards
elmar

[Compact]

can you make a digital photo of the screen?

Yep. Took me some time. Finally succeeded with a standard.

its no big deal to add pcmcia-cf support to plopkexec

It would be very nice if you feel good or find time to add it.

Friendly Greetings, Compact