Installing on a CF

There are several ways to achieve what you want to do. However, the method I RECOMMEND is to have the card formatted as FAT12/FAT16 and use SYSLINUX as your loader. Refer to for more information,

which usually implies the use of a RAMdisk or read-only mounted root-filesystem. Never tried mounting root as a loopback filesystem. Will this work using linuxrc?

Sven

try peeweelinux

The Pocket Linux Guide may be of use.

Okay...The wonderful thing about Linux is that there is always at least one more undiscovered way to do almost anything.

The way I arrange my bootable CFs is either like so:

• syslinux loads kernel

• usual compressed initrd containing entire root filesystem is loaded into RAM

• if desired, startup scripts mount the CF to a mountpoint in the (RAM) root

or like so:

• syslinux loads kernel

• a very very small initrd is loaded. All it contains is enough magic to mount the root filesystem (a loopback filesystem, yes)

Mostly, I try to run out of RAM. In a few cases where that is not possible, I use the second method above.

It's been my experience that software distribution using FAT as the card format is best because it allows users with Windows PCs to reload the cards easily if necessary. So I try to avoid complicated partitioning schemes and non-FAT filesystems at the card level. (Of course, the filesystems inside the image are ext2).

I'm going to second Lewin's argument here, and say that I independently of do the small initrd + large loopback root filesystem.

It works great. My customers all use Windows, and the advantage is that I can update the entire Linux system by copying basically 2 files on to the compact flash from ANY CompactFlash writer plugged into a Windows box.

Hi, Yeah, I've been through all this with my little distro. If you want to see the technique in action, go to:

Regards, Barry Kauler

I've gone through running Linux from an 8MB CF but these days the difference between an 8MB device and one with 128MB capacity is so tiny that it's hard for me to justify messing around with trying to cram everything in such a small CF that I need to use a RAM disk for root.

For a first-time excursion especially, I recommend just getting a much-larger-than-necessary (512MB?) CF. Experiment with it. Get everything working. Then if you really think a few dollars in savings is important, work through squeezing everything on a small CF. By then you'll know exactly what you need and the CF prices will have dropped again.

--kyler

The issue is not one of cost. I have dozens of CFs from 4Mb to 256Mb lying about. The issues are:

• avoiding issues with CF writeback and power failures while still having a "writable" (though volatile) root fs

• making it easy for Windows-only users to update the files on the disk (it's a batchfile... whereas if the card was formatted anything other than FAT, it means writing a custom utility)

Additionally, I use the exact same boot images to make "bootable floppy" 2.8Mb boot/rootdisks for CD-ROM boot purposes. In such an instance, space *is* an issue (though not much of an issue; there's no problem squeezing a system restore utility into 2.88Mb).