Hi Behan, On Tue, 29 Jul 2008, Behan Webster wrote: > However, most notably it contains a utility called "elbs-rootfs" which > makes it easy to create an embedded rootfs for any architecture > supported by the Debian projecy (or Ubuntu Linux). The idea is to get a > rootfs up and working quickly via nfs (or a flash drive) which allows > you to install any debian package and/or to do native development. This > is (not yet) meant as a tool to make your final rootfs fit on a small > flash partition. > > For those of you who are interested, it does the following: builds a > first stage debootstrap directory using a dist/mirror of your choice, > and then tweaks it so you can boot it natively to be able to run the > second stage debootstrap scripts. Yes, you can do all these things > manually, however, this does it all for you in a few minutes (with > reasonable defaults for available options). The only annoying bit is it > must be run as root, as it needs to be able to set file > permissions/ownerships and such. > > For example (as root): > > # elbs rootfs --arch mips --baud 19200 --dist etch /nfs/myrootfs > I: Building rootfs in /nfs/myrootfs > I: Installing etch/mips from http://http.us.debian.org/debian > <snip> > I: debootstrap succeeded > I: MAKEDEV in /nfs/myrootfs/dev > <snip> > I: create /nfs/myrootfs/etc/group > Boot your target with /nfs/myrootfs as your rootfs, then run the > finish script on the target > > The directory /nfs/myrootfs will now contain a stage-one (unconfigured) > debootstrap installation of arch mips from debian/etch, modified to > allow you to connect to a serial console ttyS0 at 19200 baud (as > specified on the command line above). > > You then need to boot your target using this rootfs and run the > finish.sh script which will complete the installation. > > # sh /finish.sh > > You should now have a fully configured rootfs for your target which is > capable of native compiling (amongst other things). Thanks for this useful tool! I'm used to plain debootstrap, but decided to give your elbs-rootfs a try for creating up a mipsel and a powerpc NFS root file system. It worked fine, except for one minor nit. As an NFS root file system is mounted read-only by default, I had to manually do | mount -n proc /proc -t proc | mount -n -o remount -w / before running finish.sh. Perhaps this can be added to the top of finish.sh? Add the end of its execution, finish.sh says: | Feel free to delete /debootstrap and the downloaded packages | # rm -rf /debootstrap | # apt-get clean | Please reboot now | # shutdown -r now Shouldn't it suggest to delete /finish.sh, too? Anyway, thanks for this tool! With kind regards, Geert Uytterhoeven Software Architect Sony Techsoft Centre Europe The Corporate Village · Da Vincilaan 7-D1 · B-1935 Zaventem · Belgium Phone: +32 (0)2 700 8453 Fax: +32 (0)2 700 8622 E-mail: Geert.Uytterhoeven@xxxxxxxxxxx Internet: http://www.sony-europe.com/ A division of Sony Europe (Belgium) N.V. VAT BE 0413.825.160 · RPR Brussels Fortis 293-0376800-10 GEBA-BE-BB
