All,

Is there another way to make a CD bootable other than the "el torrito" method? The problem I am having is this:

Basically I am creating a liveCD (or trying to) and am getting a bunch of errors that all point to the fact that I don't have certain things statically compiled into my kernel, and since it is burried in an .img file, it can't get to any modules (because they are on a disk that isn't mounted yet!). What I am wondering is if there is some other way to make the CD bootable so I don't have to use the .img file?

Thanks,
Pair

Have you looked at ISO Linux?

Hello,

You can take a look at the Knoppix documentation and/or remaster howto?
They are some good tips for live cd creation.
--
free_ouyo

Thanks for the tips! I'll take a look at both.

-Pair

I had a look at the knoppix documentation as suggested. It appears that they are creating a compressed filesystem image to format the CD with. Does that sound close to correct? I am going to give it a try and see what I can do with it!

Thanks,
Pair

'Nother question about the ISOLinux method. Here's a quote from their site:

"To create an image, create a directory called "isolinux" (or, if you prefer, "boot/isolinux") underneath the root directory of your ISO image master file tree. Copy isolinux.bin, a config file called "isolinux.cfg" (see syslinux.doc for details on the configuration file), and all necessary files (kernels, initrd, display files, etc.) into this directory, then use the following command to create your ISO image (add additional options as appropriate, such as -J or -R):

mkisofs -o output.iso \
-b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat \
-no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \
root-of-iso-tree"

Sorry I know this is a terribly newbie question to ask, but I am not entirely sure what they mean by "root-of-iso-tree." Obviously I am supposed to specify a path there, but wouldn't the path to the root of the iso tree be the same thing "/" every time? Can someone give me a couple of good examples of how that should look? Sorry for all the fuss here, this stuff is fairly new to me.

Thanks,
Pair

That's the folder where your cdbuild is located.
You could also cd into that directory and use the period ( . )
For example:
cd /home/cdbuild
mkisofs -o output.iso -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat \
-no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table .

Killer! I'll give it a try.

Pair

Alrighty, isolinux booted as advertized, but it didn't resolve the problem. Here is the error I get:

kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k ide-cd, errno = 2
VFS: Cannot open root device "hdc" or 16:00
Please append correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 16:00

Any ideas? I was wondering if it is possible to load a generic kernel just to bring the devices up, and show a LILO screen, then use that to boot into another kernel somehow? Maybe that is too convoluted . . . Maybe there is an easier way. Any suggestions?

Thanks again,
Pair

Ai, i'm not 100% sure but maybe you should try a different kernel, or build your own, it's not particularly hard.

What kernel are you using, or are you building a custom liveCD (like your own distribution)

Dom

This is great advice, and it worked. I had to compile the IDE-CD driver in instead of as a module. Once I did that, it fired up. There were plenty of other errors, but all that had to do with having a read-only filesystem.

-P

Almost forgot, much thanks to all who posted!