linux distro working with USB 2.0 PCMCIA Card and Plop Boot Manager

[tyeutyeu]

hello,

I try to find some linux distro, I can boot with my USB 2.0 PCCARD on my old laptop with the fantastic Plop boot manager !

Elmar explain me the raison why some linux don't boot :

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"the boot manager pcmcia stuff seems to work on your pc because you get a start menu from the distro. so the not booting problem is a problem of the linux distro you are using.

when you want to boot a linux distro from a pcmcia usb pccard, then the linux kernel must have pcmcia/pccard support compiled into the kernel, or the distro has to load the required modules during bootup. you have to ask the people of the distro to add this feature when you are not able to boot the distro from the usb pccard. or you compile the kernel by yourself.

btw. ploplinux is able to boot from an usb pccard, but i don't think that ploplinux is that what you need.

regards
elmar"
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I have found one small and very good for my old laptop :
- slitaz 3.0 (only 24 Mo)

If somebody have found an other one it could be grat to share your experiences.

thanks

[vesalocal]

Well, I'm not Elmar, but the reason why booting from a pcmcia/pccard adapter is difficult:
your computers BIOS don't know anything about the card you plugged in at boot time.
So how and from where should it read the kernel to boot?

Even if a Linux kernel has the pcmcia stuff compiled in, it can't be loaded from a storage medium
connected via pcmcia since this medium is unreachable at boot time.  Here is something to read:
  http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/ftp/doc/PCMCIA-HOWTO-4.html#ss4.4
The way described there is to load a kernel from somewhere or HDD or floppy (not possible with
kernel 2.6.xx - its too large), load pcmcia modules and read the distro from a pcmcia/pccard.

Thats exactly why I am and some other guys over here are very interested in Elmars implementation
of pcmcia card drivers in his PLOP bootmanager...

HTH

[Elmar]

hi,
its not difficult with the pcmcia/pccard driver compiled into the kernel or loaded from initrd

pc starts plop boot manager
plop boot manager inits  the usb pccard
plop boots the usb drive in the pccard
kernel/initrd is loaded from the usb drive connected to the pccard
kernel inits pccard again -> it can init the usb pccard controller -> it can reach the usb drive on the pccard
continuing booting as usual from internal usb controller

thats it (like ploplinux does)

regards
elmar

[vesalocal]

kernel/initrd is loaded from the usb drive connected to the pccard

I'm sure you still can imagine the hard times _before_ your PLOP bootmanager was available ?-)

[tyeutyeu]

Hello,

I just try a very good linux distribution for old computers with USB 2.0 PCCARD Boot :

- legacy OS (Teenpup) based on Puppy 2.14.

You just have to run the live CD, choose the universal installer, and install it to a USB flash drive, and modify the file syslinux.cfg with a linux text editor

default vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 initrd=initrd.gz PMEDIA=usbflash

just add : pfix=usbcard

so syslinux.cfg looks like :

default vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 initrd=initrd.gz pfix=usbcard PMEDIA=usbflash

Thank you for your help Elmar and your work


It could be a good idea to create a list of linux small distribution for old computers for USB 2.0 PCMCIA BOOT and the way to modify them ?...

[vesalocal]

I just try a very good linux distribution for old computers with USB 2.0 PCCARD Boot :
- legacy OS (Teenpup) based on Puppy 2.14.

Is a PC with USB 2.0 already an old computer?  I don't think so...  But your (mile)age may vary.
"Legacy" usually means ISA bus - I did not come across an ISA to USB adapter yet ;-)

However...

[tyeutyeu]

Yes it is because the computer have no USB 2.0 native, so I have to install a USB 2.0 PC-CARD (PCMCIA) to boot on.