Re: Bare bones filesytem using Karim's book

Dear Brian,

in message [ref] you wrote:

Any quick thoughts on why this might be happening? To provide a comparison benchmark as I worked through this, I copied the (i) dev files, (ii) inittab and (iii) rc.sysinit from chapter 6 of the book (my "from scratch filesytem") to the ELDK stripped do
wn target filesystem and this setup still boots. As for my stripped down ELDK, I have stripped it to the point where the following remains:

glibc-ppc_4xx-2.2.5-0.19a
libtermcap-devel-ppc_4xx-2.0.8-28
cracklib-dicts-ppc_4xx-2.7-12
pam-devel-ppc_4xx-0.75-19
fileutils-ppc_4xx-4.1-4
mingetty-ppc_4xx-0.9.4-18
gawk-ppc_4xx-3.1.0-3
SysVinit-ppc_4xx-2.78-19
e2fsprogs-devel-ppc_4xx-1.26-1.72
modutils-ppc_4xx-2.4.13-0.7.1a
bash-ppc_4xx-2.05-8
net-tools-ppc_4xx-1.60-3
portmap-ppc_4xx-4.0-38a
initscripts-ppc_4xx-6.43-1c
termcap-ppc_4xx-11.0.1-10
kernel-headers-ppc_4xx-2.4.4-1
glibc-common-ppc_4xx-2.2.5-0.19a
glibc-devel-ppc_4xx-2.2.5-0.19a
glib-ppc_4xx-1.2.10-5
libtermcap-ppc_4xx-2.0.8-28
cracklib-ppc_4xx-2.7-12
pam-ppc_4xx-0.75-19
textutils-ppc_4xx-2.0.14-2
mount-ppc_4xx-2.11g-5a
setup-ppc_4xx-2.3.4-1b
sh-utils-ppc_4xx-2.0.11-5
e2fsprogs-ppc_4xx-1.26-1.72
logrotate-ppc_4xx-3.5.9-1
sysklogd-ppc_4xx-1.4.1-4
util-linux-ppc_4xx-2.11f-17
busybox-ppc_4xx-0.60.1-17

Oops. You call that "stripped down"? Ummm...

If you want to know what is  needed  for  a  small  filesystem  still
providing  things  like  PAM-based  login  and  xinetd based services
(telnet, ftp) you should have a look at the SELF RPM and  it's  build
script.  It  is  *significantly*  smaller  than your ""stripped down"
system...

Most of the above were left in as I felt they needed to be there or they were "required" sysVinit or initscripts, which I didn't want to remove...

What makes you think these packages are needed? What exactly  do  YOU
need them for?

For example, why do you think glibc-devel is needed for  your  target
filesystem?

When designing an embedded system you  must  not  try  to  folow  any
package  dependencies  from  some  distribution.  Design  your system
bottom up: just add the components which absolutley  must  go  in  to
perform  services required by your project specification. OK, you may
_then_ end up adding some more "glue"...

Below is a log of my boot log for the "from scratch" filesystem. The stripped down ELDK filesystem still boots.

...

The "Freeing unused kernel memory:..." line is where it stops. Any ideas?

There are many, many things you may have done wrong.  Missing  device
nodes,  missing  libraries,  bogus  configuration.  For  example, you
include both SysVinit-ppc_4xx-2.78-19  and  busybox-ppc_4xx-0.60.1-17
in  your  list - both include thier own (and incompatible!!!) version
of an init process.

Which one did you (try to) enable?


Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

--
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-4596-87  Fax: (+49)-8142-4596-88  Email: wd@denx.de
The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is the  most  likely
to be correct.                                    -- William of Occam

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