[debian-non-standard] Problems installing debian on FSG-3 (boots from flash, but cannot see internal disk)

Tomasz Chmielewski mangoo at wpkg.org
Tue Jan 29 15:20:09 CET 2008


juan--nsd82 at lavera.dnsalias.net schrieb:

> Thanks a lot for the info. I'll try to boot again from flash and get a 
> complete dmesg (plus trying with different ide disk). After my 1st 
> Debian I used "recovery" to go back to FSG firmware, after 
> repartitioning and reformatting the disk on a PC.

Why did you need to repartition the HDD at all? I thought you said your 
system doesn't see the drive when booted from a "debianized" USB-stick?


> So if my 2nd attempt fails, is there an easier way to go back to 
> original SW provided I haven't touch the disk. I suppose it must be 
> something along the way of:
> 
> 1) Boot on standard FSG kernal. Do
>    dd if=/dev/mtd3 of=configbackup
>    dd if=/dev/mtd2 of=kernelbackup
> 
> 2) Save both backups to (another) flash drive
> 
> 3) Boot in debian, experiment. At the end:
>    dd kernelbackup of=/dev/mtd3
>    dd configbackup of=/dev/mtd5

FSG assistant should work fine. We flash the kernel on an empty mtd 
partition, so you don't have to backup anything. We change the 
bootloader in order to boot a new kernel.


> BTW: Do you know if the "recovery" of Freecom FSA does delete all data 
> or just rewrites kernel. If it doesn't "reformat" then I could just do 
> "recovery" after my experiments without loosing any data. I've got 
> backups for everything, but restoring it is a PITA.

Frankly, I don't remember ;)
I never had to do it.


> Meanwhile, I tried hdparm on the FSG kernel . There is an hdparm 
> included, but to my surprise:
> 
> / # hdparm -?
> hdparm: invalid option -- ?
> BusyBox v1.2.1 (2007.11.21-17:49+0000) multi-call binary
> 
>    (just in case you want to know the hdparm version)
> 
> /dev/sda1:
> hdparm: HDIO_GET_IDENTITY: Inappropriate ioctl for device  <===OOOH!
> 
> (in fact  the hdparm parameters -d, -k, -m -n -r -u all give 
> "Inappropriate ioctl for device"

I get those, too, so perhaps that's OK. Only -I seems to work.

Your drive is not blacklisted or anything... I've no idea why it's not 
detected.


(...)


> Regarding kernel compilation, I'm "fluent" at compiling kernels, but 
> never did a cross compilation. I suppose I can resort to this if the 
> rest fails, and woudl be grateful if you could provide links to to the 
> toolchain, needed kernel patches (if any) and a valid ".config" to start 
> playing with.

You may want to try with the most recent kernel:

1) download http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.24.tar.bz2
2) download and apply the patch: 
http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/snapshots/patch-2.6.24-git5.bz2
3) download and apply the patch: 
http://marc.info/?l=linux-arm-kernel&m=120161468117771&q=raw


There should be a /proc/config file when you boot your FSG from a 
USB-stick. If you have a night or so, you don't even need to 
cross-compile it - you can do it on FSG (and then, kexec to a new kernel 
to see if it works).

If you really need a cross-compiler, you can search the web to see how 
to build one, or I can send you my own binaries (not sure if they will 
work on your system, though).

I guess the easiest way to build a cross-compiler would be:

svn co https://svn.openwrt.org/openwrt/trunk/

Then - make menuconfig, choose a platform which runs on ARM, deselect 
all other packages, make, done.


-- 
Tomasz Chmielewski
http://wpkg.org



More information about the debian-non-standard mailing list