No rootfs

[CodeAsm]

Somehow we need to get a rootfs working. Originaly Runix group used a memory unit or units to hold a very basic EXT2 filesystem.
There Kernel side to load such a system is inplace still but the sources for the memory formating is nolonger to be found

• Recreate a basic filesystem on a memory unit for the kernel to find.
• some basic folders and init,
• maybe busybox.

[immolo]

RUNIX also booted from CD, it's how we used to play with this back in the day. The ISOs seem to be lost to time, however the process for creating one is detailed in the RUNIX 2.4.0 tarball https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_GAaDjR83rLcFY5TWVIRkhiNW8/

Personally I would start with booting into an INITRAMFS (likely need to use the older initrd on 2.4) then you can switchroot into any storage method that the PS1 kernel supports like we did to boot Gentoo Linux on the PS2 via NFSroot or USB.

[CodeAsm]

RUNIX also booted from CD, it's how we used to play with this back in the day. The ISOs seem to be lost to time, however the process for creating one is detailed in the RUNIX 2.4.0 tarball https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_GAaDjR83rLcFY5TWVIRkhiNW8/

Personally I would start with booting into an INITRAMFS (likely need to use the older initrd on 2.4) then you can switchroot into any storage method that the PS1 kernel supports like we did to boot Gentoo Linux on the PS2 via NFSroot or USB.

Thanks for the replies, I have read about booting a initramfs or rootfs in general from the cdrom, but havent seen more detailed documentation on how to accomplish this. maybe a seperate file on the disc, or another filesystem on the disc so the kernel can map it properly.
f
You mention "process for creating one is detailed in the RUNIX 2.4.0" which tarball to be exact and or which document? or is this based on the Linux kernel documentation itself and not the Runix documentation? (The howto are written way later and dont mention a seperate initram fs or whatever. the only thing ive spotted is adding the image to the kernel itself. (and if I must, i might need to switch tools).

If you mean that "addinitrd linux.ecoff mem_card.example linux.image.ecoff" command, yeah, I tried that. I guess my current tools dont understand and dont copy the added image over to the new executable (its newer and not what they used back in Runix era) and my current knowledge is a bit low to edit the program to convert and add the image anyway. If you remember clearly to have or others used this method to get a working initrd added to the kernel. I really could invest some more time in seeing how to keep such image attached during the conversion to PS-EXE.

Should also get a dummy init, dont know what formats ive tried and should have worked if i did. debugging with emulators have been a pain (and learning curve).

[immolo]

The howto_en.txt in the tarball has the explanation for creating ISOs.

It's been so long since I've worked with 2.4 kernels that at best I can only drop some hints of the parts I remember rather than anything more unfortunately.

However, if you get a working system booting again into an initrd image then I might have information to start giving more pointers or if you are really lucky, the stars might align and I can look into updating the toolchain at that point and write some docs to help others get in. I'd have to see how work looks before promising though.

[maekawa-mugi]

maekawa-mugi@867b2c0
I created the generator by working backward from the driver.
It's a very early version that hasn't been well tested, but it seems to work.