Blackrhino USB install with Kernelloader

[gira93]

Hi all!!!

I've followed the steps written by Peterdcrees and mounted my nfsroot via ethernet.

There's only one problem...

When at the end i type

exec /sbin/init

The PSTwo (slim) just shuts down without any error!!!

What i must do???

[deba5er]

@gira93

I don't know what is causing this but recommend trying another NFS method described here - http://forums.ps2dev.org/viewtopic.php?t=12969

[gira93]

Thanks,

I've re-downloaded the 2 archives and now i can pass the Init stage,

But now i have another problem
When i do exec /sbin/init i have an error message that says to enter the root password for maintenance mode.

If i use the loop image from the link you posted, how do i set it up?

[deba5er]

@gira93

enter the root password for maintenance mode.

The only password I've preset with my distro is "changeme" for both user adent and user root.

If i use the loop image from the link you posted, how do i set it up?

Use a 7-zip compatible decompressor to unpack to a 2GB file, then you would mount it in your Ubuntu or whatever Linux (assuming mountpoints) something like this - "sudo mount -o loop -t ext3 /ps2linux_loop /mnt/nfsrootdir". From there you can serve it or you can copy the files into a new root structure to remove the need to mount the loop file before serving over NFS.

[Dadas]

@dwegiel - I worked tonight on the usb on fat ps2 linux tests tonight. It does work and I have a configuration that may not be stated in 5 easy steps tonight because it is so late here and i am tired. I have never used ps2-linux before on usb either until dlanor and yourself asked some questions, so the past couple nights I have based my tests on ps2dev forum threads I remembered and my knowledge of ps2linux on hdd on fat ps2 which i suppose is pretty extensive.

So you have to understand I have not been holding out on you or too lazy to write down what needs to be done. I had not done it either ;-) And currently there is not alot of scripting in place for something which can be complex, so it does require some bit of manual effort at the moment. Like any of the beta projects here, it starts off with alot of manual steps and ends up being scripted (remember FMCB when it first came out?).

PS2-Linux on FAT PS2 USB

1) If you can use vmware on windows to start an ubuntu image or use a bootable puppylinux (running completely in ram), then you can fdisk /dev/sda or fdisk /dev/sdb to create a 128MB swap partition #1 and whatever sized ext2 ps2linux root partition #2 - steps 7-9 apply, changing the hda to sda or sdb depending on what your flash drive presents to your ubuntu/puppylinux - http://kernelloader.sourceforge.net/...talllinux.html

2) While in the ubuntu/puppylinux you'll want to mount and extract my two .bz2 ps2linux-distro files. It should go something like (as root or su or sudo):
mkdir /mnt/sdb2
mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt/sdb2
cd /mnt/sdb2
tar jxvf /directory_tree_where_you_put_ps2linuxdistro_files/ps2linux-base.tar.bz2
tar jxvf /directory_tree_where_you_put_ps2linuxdistro_files/ps2linux-usrlocal.tar.bz2

You may need to modify /etc/fstab, but with /newroot I don't think you do, so we'll leave this step out for now - my tests weren't that extensive at it is late.

cd /
umount /mnt/sdb2

Both ubuntu and puppylinux can see windows ntfs and linux ext2 so this is quite handy for Windows users if you boot a live cd or run from vm. If you decide to change the partition numbers, remember that I'm counting on partition 2 being the root ext2 filesystem and partition 1 being the swap, so it's on you to change the instructions later.

3) If you have two 8MB PS2 memory cards or one 16MB or higher you can make a directory on MC0 - kloader
in kloader, make sure you don't already have a config.txt (so that you know you are starting with a default configuration)

Place this initrd in this directory - http://sourceforge.net/projects/kern...b2.gz/download

Place this kernel in this directory - http://sourceforge.net/projects/kern...80302/download

You will probably be out of room on the MC0 so on MC1 you can put kloader.elf - http://sourceforge.net/projects/kern...9.elf/download

4) DO NOT PLUG IN YOUR USB FLASH DRIVE YET

5) Run kloader.elf from ULE
6) Go to Configuration Menu, Edit Kernel Parameter - you must have usb keyboard to enter (ntsc or pal change appropriately):
crtmode=ntsc ramdisk_size=16384 root=/dev/ram0 newroot=/dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part2 delay=6

7) The above characters sometimes look weird (2 replaces r, etc.). Just be careful about entering it, the display of characters may be garbled.

8) Go to Boot Menu, Select Kernel, Memory Card 1, then kloader directory, and kernel as placed there in #3 above. (DEVFS kernel)

9) Go to Select Initrd, Memory Card 1, then kloader directory and initrd as placed there in #3 above. (USB initrd)

10) Go to File Menu, Save Current Config

11) Go to Boot Menu, INSERT USB FLASH DRIVE NOW, then go to Boot Current Config

12) You will see some errors flash by, but should be able to boot directly into fluxbox window manager/x-windows. Right click on screen to select menu.

13) DO NOT SELECT SHUTDOWN PS2 from menu. Currently the shutdown sequence will not unmount the USB flash drive properly and you will need to fsck on boot. It may work, or you may need to manually fsck in ubuntu or puppylinux.

14) If you right-click (in x-windows/fluxbox) and select exit, it drops you back to a unix prompt (no x-windows), then you can su, enter the root password (changeme on my distro). ps -ef will show running processes, if you kill all syslogd, klogd, dpi, bookmarks, and whatever other process using kill # where number is the PID listed in the output, you can then run /etc/init.d/umountfs;shutdown -h now to unmount the USB flash drive cleanly. Looks like a place for further research.

I ran dillo and surfing the web is fine. It is laggier (is that a word) than hdd, but it is useable since I've tuned my distro to run entirely in memory. I assume you will get flash drive wear over time due to logging that is configured. It might be best to disable klogd, syslogd for flash drive use. Some things for later I think. I'm tired. If you have RTE you also get sound from xmms. So beta is not 5 easy steps, but if you want to try, this is better than a bunch or random-seeming links, right?

Wow, will this work on slim PS2 too?

[gira93]

Finally,

Using the loop_file extracted to a folder i can run linux!!!

Now the only problem is that i can't run X, i live in PAL area,

i type startx and it gives me 31 IO errors (i can't see them)

[deba5er]

@Dadas

Unfortunately the USB version only works for FAT PS2. On the Slim it cannot handle much USB data transfer before it fails. It won't make it through an installation, and even when using a pre-built USB image, it fails to run. We don't know why this occurs.

@gira93

If you know how to use the vi editor, stop (Control-C) right before X-Windows tries to start. "vi /usr/local/bin/win3". On the line that starts with "sudo X", change $XMODE to PAL,inter (or if using an older distro change NTSC,inter to PAL,inter). Then save. You can look online for the commands to use the vi program.

[gira93]

Thanks!!!

I've made it!!!

Only one last question and then i will disappear forever

How can i set an Italian keymap, if i use the command setxkbmap it, it says that the map is not found.

it seems that there's only the us keyboard.

[deba5er]

@gira93

I haven't done this before, but you can try to set an environment variable "export LC_ALL=italian" as the last line in /etc/profile, then restart the system. And no worries about the questions, if I can't answer them I'm hopeful someone else on the forum can. If you don't get a response from me it is almost certainly because I don't know the answer or I misunderstood the question.

I checked and /etc/locale.alias has italian, AND /usr/share/i18n/locales/it_IT and it_IT@euro both exist.

[gira93]

I added the command to /etc/profile but nothing changed, also i tried to run the command from the terminal outside X, it doesn't return any error but the keyboard in both X and terminal remains the same.

I've used the blackrhino base and usrlocal builds from 2010