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Building a CF Based LEAF Distro for PC Engines WRAP Board

This is a complete listing of the procedures used to create the installable Q*Box image.

  • Install your Compact Flash card into the wrap enclosure.
  • Connect with a serial cable, and as listed in the manual, settings are 8N1 no handshake.
  • Boot up the WRAP board and hit s during the memory test to configure the bios.
  • Turn on boot from LAN and hit Q to save.
  • Boot the board with PXE from your TFTP server. The instructions for the setup of the server are out of the scope of this project, but here are the resources:
    • Updating the BIOS on your WRAP Board to support PXE Booting
    • Linux Terminal Server Project on Gentoo
    • Gentoo - LTSP Guide
    • Using PXE with Bering uClibc
    • Here's my tips from doing the setup of tftp / dhcp:
      • Use the dhcpd.conf settings specified on the Bering guide. Don't change the host name. I changed it then ran into a really odd problem. If you are arriving at this page because you are getting an "Enter runlevel:" command, review your dhcpd.conf settings for the hostname. In the kernel arguments passed from the default file in /tftpboot/pxelinuc.conf/ an argument of pxe is passed that is the hostname. If this doesn't match the dhcpd.conf you're b0rked.
      • Baud rates for the serial cable are a pain. In the WRAP bios I recommend changing to 9600. Then cp net4501 default in /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg. Edit default in two places from 19200 to 9600. This will then get you all the way through the boot process if you connect at 9600. However, once it gets to the login you'll need to reconnect at 19200.
      • Don't worry about the scrolling keyboard error when it's booting up. The WRAP board does not contain a keyboard controller. The scrolling messages will time out.
  • Now that you've net booted with PXE onto the box, you should be connected at the terminal (using a serial cable). Username is root, no password
  • Look in /var/lib and use edit hdsupp.help to see some basic directions. Main thing here is

fdisk /dev/hda1

o

p to create a new primary partion

1 for first partition

enter - default cylinder

enter - default end cylinder

a - make it bootable

t - select a partition type

6 - for FAT

w - write partition table and exit

mkfs.msdos /dev/hda1

Write syslinux to the CF card syslinux /dev/hda1

*WARNING - Some documentation you may encounter may tell you to create a master boot record using dd
This is INCORRECT. Syslinux does all that for you.*

Another tip: If you have a CF reader and Windows around, use Windows to format the disk with FAT.

colossus q-box # fdformat /dev/fd0u1680
Double-sided, 80 tracks, 21 sec/track. Total capacity 1680 kB.
Formatting ... done
Verifying ... done
colossus q-box # ls
Bering-uClibc_2.3-rc1_img_bering-uclibc-1680.bin  leafbin
QBox.sxw                                          rsenykoff@maia.cs.luc.edu
QBox.txt                                          rsenykoff@xenon.cs.luc.edu
initrd_ide_cd.lrp                                 wrap1c.pdf
colossus q-box # rm -rf leafbin
colossus q-box # dd if=Bering-uClibc_2.3-rc1_img_bering-uclibc-1680.bin of=/dev/fd0u1680
3360+0 records in
3360+0 records out
colossus q-box # mount /dev/fd0u1680 /mnt/floppy/
colossus q-box # vi /mnt/floppy/leaf.cfg
colossus q-box # mkdir /mnt/ftp/leaf

Documentation incomplete beyond this point

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