Gentoo install from PCMCIA CD-Rom

CPUguy387 · 03-07-2005, 08:51 PM

Hi,

I have a Sony PCG-505TS that has a PCMCIA CD-Rom Drive. I am able to boot from the Gentoo 2004.3 Live CD and start Linucx, but I bomb out when it can't find a CDRom drive device and I get a busybox command line that asks me to Specify a Root Device (which is the cdrom). I looked around, and so far I have seen that I need to type in some sort of command like:

echo "scsi add-ingle-device 0 0 0 0" > ....... , but it always tells me that it is not a root file system.

I have also tried the no CDRom method for this laptop on Gentoo's forums, but my linksys wired NIC isn't detected in that method, so I wasn't able to download the liveCD files.

Does anybody have suggestions on how to get either method working?

Thanks!

comprookie2000 · 03-07-2005, 09:36 PM

You can install it from another live cd or another distro.Slackware works good,do the minimum install http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/altinstall.xml

CPUguy387 · 03-08-2005, 03:50 PM

Thanks for the response! I tried all the methods that would work on the laptop from that screen, but none of them could find the CD-Rom. Is there some way of manually mounting it when doing the Gentoo LiveCD install. It is a Sony PCGA-CD51.

comprookie2000 · 03-08-2005, 04:54 PM

Does this make any since;
OS Installation

I am a Red Hat weenie; that is what I installed. I have a SuSE 6.0 installation set that I will probably install on my spare partition, just to compare it. Either way, the installation process is similar.

Installation from PC-Card network adaptor is straight out of the installation guide book. Just follow the instructions therein.

Installation from CD-ROM requires the optional PCGA-CD5 external CD-ROM. With the CD-ROM attached, the system treats it as IDE device 3, which the installation kernel does not know about. At the 'boot:' prompt, type linux ide2=0x180,0x386. Do not enable PC-Card (PCMCIA) support during installation. The /dev/cdrom device will be a symlink to /dev/hde, and you can use it if you do not use Card Services. If you do use Card Services, the CD-ROM will be mapped to IDE2, /dev/hdc, and you will need to change the /dev/cdrom symlink and the /etc/fstab entry.
What kind of card do yo have?

CPUguy387 · 03-08-2005, 09:11 PM

You know what, I found that exact same thing. For the Gentoo install, at the prompt the HOWTO told me to type:

Code:

gentoo ide2=0x180,0x386 nofb noapm acpi

And the LiveCD booted! BUT.....

I think when my CD spins down while it is detecting other devices, the install can't find the CD any longer for some reason, so I get a bunch of buffer I/O errors when I try to access my CD-Rom drive to copy the stage file, like this:

Code:

Buffer I/O error on device hde, logical block XX
end_request: I/O error, dev hde, sector XX

Is there some way to remedy this?

PS, here's the output of ls /mnt/cdrom after he LiveCD has finished booting:

Code:

ls: /mnt/cdrom/distfiles: Input/output error
ls: /mnt/cdrom/docs: Input/output error
ls: /mnt/cdrom/isolinux: Input/output error
ls: /mnt/cdrom/snapshots: Input/output error
ls: /mnt/cdrom/stages: Input/output error
livecd.sqashfs     x86-packagelist-2004.3.txt     x86-release-notes.txt

kupojsin · 03-11-2005, 01:19 AM

hey guys im having the same problems
except im getting a crc error that kills everything
what does that mean?

CPUguy387 · 03-17-2005, 08:21 PM

Well, it has been a while since the last post, so I thought I'd update with my progress. I have found a way to stop the buffer error and use network support. I accomplished network support on my little PCG-505TS by plugging in a Linksys USB-Network adapter (USB100M) into the USB Port and running my PCMCIA CD-Rom with the following at boot:

Code:

gentoo ide2=0x180,0x386 nofb noapm acpi=on docache nohotplug

AND IT WORKS!

Now, I only have one issue. When I start the comptuer with grub, when I clickin on gentoo, it loads the bzImage and then reboots. I know it's probably something I configured wrong in the kernel, but what? Genkernel doesn't seem to help here either....

CPUguy387 · 03-18-2005, 10:21 PM

Well, I finally got it started! In my kernel, I disabled all power management support, which did the trick. However, when the laptop boots (which it FINALLY does), it gets stuck for about 5 minutes at "Calculating Module Dependencies". Any ideas? Thanks.

CPUguy387 · 03-19-2005, 07:44 AM

Fixed the slowdown too by using some instructions I found here:

http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofivers...p/t267491.html

Now, I was just wondering if anyone would know why after typing the emerge command in Gentoo, why my laptop waits almost a minute before beginning to install something. It susually sits for another 10 minutes at "Calculating Dependencies" . Now, this laptop is 300Mhz, and an older 233Mhz one I have does the emerge command much faster. What Gives

comprookie2000 · 03-19-2005, 10:05 AM

I would compare /etc/make.conf are they about the same on both laptops?