[debian-non-standard] 2.4 kernel on Asus WL500G Premium

[Tomasz Chmielewski]

Luci Stanescu schrieb:
> Hello,
> 
> I haven't had any problems with flashing a 2.6 kernel image on the above 
> mentioned and using a usb stick as the root filesystem, except for the 
> fact that wireless does not work. OpenWRT with 2.4 kernel (2.4.35.4 
> iirc) works without any problems, the userland in debian etch seems to 
> work with 2.4 (file reports
> 
> ELF 32-bit LSB executable, MIPS, MIPS-I version 1 (SYSV), for GNU/Linux 
> 2.4.1, dynamically linked (uses shared libs), stripped
> 
> and I've actually completed the second stage of debootstrap from openwrt 
> and installed a few packages by chrooting) but I just can't seem to 
> build an image with a 2.4 kernel that boots. I'm blindfolded for now, 
> but that will change as soon as possible.
> 
> So, my question is: has anyone tried this? Am I missing something?

I guess you're unable to boot a 2.4 kernel off a built-in flash and then 
continue booting the system from a USB-stick?


USB mass-storage devices (USB-sticks etc.) need some time (3-4 seconds) 
before they are fully available to the kernel.
Therefore, with a 2.6 kernel we use rootdelay=10 to delay booting for 10 
seconds (10 seconds just to make sure it's long enough) - only then a 
/dev/sda device is detected and is usable.


2.4 kernel lacks a "rootdelay=" kernel parameter, so it tries to boot 
the system immediately after the kernel is booted, and with no device, 
it fails (no root found, kernel panic).


There were some patches for 2.4 kernel to add a similar functionality, 
if you look well enough in google.


-- 
Tomasz Chmielewski
http://wpkg.org