Installing Linux on unknown hardware

Mar 27, 2005 1 Replies

Ive got a little project that I could use some advice on...



Ive inherited some custom hardware, that has an onboard Disk-On-Module,



2 usb ports, RAM, CPU, VGA output, ethernet (Realtek chip) and audio out. Some of the chips have a heat-sink on them so I cant tell exactly what on it.


From the person I obtained it from, I know its an x86 compatable cpu


with a 'sigma-design' audio/video co-processor. I have no idea, how big the flash disk is, nor, how much ram on board.


When I power it on, it says Non System Boot Disk, which suggest the DOM is blank and I should be able to install linux on it.


I dont have much experience in building toolchains or kernals, so what would be some suggestions on a (tiny) distro that might work without much modification that could detect some of the basic hardware (usb, ethernet)?


TIA, Ben

If the board is anything close to a PC architecture and supports booting from Ethernet, then set up a bootp server to have the board load a basic kernel and a ramdisk image with a simple root filesystem and a shell, all from the network. You can then investigate what hardware is identified by Linux. Try the information at this link:

formatting link

Rob

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