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Klinux file system support

R

RC

Golden Member
I find myself in a situation where I need to copy a file from Windows to Klinux using a floppy.

Normally one would use the mount -t msdos OR mount -t vfat command to mount the floppy on Linux.

I have just been told by the author of Klinux that these file system types are not supported. Supporting them would have caused the total size of the bootable image to exceed 1.44M. This is understandable.

Does anyone know a work around to my dilemna. I do not have a full install of Linux at home.
 
Not directly no. However, you can use a LRP image instead - look at
http://lrp.steinkuehler.net/
and grab one of those images. Its designed to be a firewall/router, but is uses a standard floppy. Go for a matterhorn release, and you will have enough room to put some of the RCclient stuff on the boot disk. If not, you can pop another floppy in the drive, with standard msdos file system. It all *easily* fits on one 1.44 meg floppy (Eiger disks just barely fit on one floppy).

I have a 2 floppy setup, and my LRP box is running a caching DNS server, Web server, firewall/router, SSH and SCP, and cracking RC5 - and I have about 40% of the second floppy free if I want to expand it out to doing other stuff. (You can see my little web stuff at http://belly.frogbelly.org - check the Waleska Weather, which updates from my weather station every five minutes).

LRP sounds like a better fit for you than Klinux.
 
Thanks Potbelly. I have no need for a router, but perhaps I can choose which modules to load.
 
Five hours later and I have it up and running. The interface to the Matterhorn release allows a person to easily configure his system and then update the bootable floppy with the changes. I like it a lot. All the hooks are there to create quite a customized Linux distro.

Thanks - PotBelly
 
I'm glad it's working out for you RC.
I think I'll take a look-see at it in the morning.
It sounds like it could very well put my Klinux out of business. :Q

You got to love that "Open Source" stuff. 😉
 
Put Klinux out of business - I doubt that.

It has a few features that could be incorporated into Klinux, but I realize you are rather pressed for time.

I spent several hours today looking at my options on Linux distros, and Matterhorn was the one that worked best for me.

If you decide to upgrade Klinux I would be glad to give you my wish list - 😛

Have you ever configured a crackrack that booted off a linux server using NIC BOOT ROMs? Lot more flexibility. I most likely will go that way next time. With every option comes a list of pros and cons. What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages associated with using a NIC BOOT ROM?

 
Hahahahahhaa


Sorry man, but the way of the boot rom has JUST barely decided to come back. You are either hard pressed for the money to buy the new cards, or your hard pressed programming your own proms. It's not fun, doable, but not fun!!!

Take it from someone who knows.

LD
 
Programming a prom is tedious and not simple. I've done it before many years ago in control systems. There are affordable NICs that make the task a lot easier, but not at $10 a NIC. Booting off a linux floppy will always be less costly. I'm into the project/hobby to explore new possibilities.

LD, have you used any of the recent NICs that have a boot prom?

Update: I just took a look at the link in your sig, you really have worked a lot on programming boot proms. I will bookmark your site. It's after 4 am here, too late for bed and too early to be up. 🙁

 
Very cool. 🙂 I'm glad that Matterhorn works for you. I just use it as my firewall machine mostly, and I've set it up on a couple of other boxes as firewalls for small networks. If you've got a setup that saves the client between reboots, and the buffers, then brings everything back up and sets it to cracking when the machine comes back on, I would be very interested in seeing it. I'm a linux newbie and I can't figure out how to make things that advanced myself. You might want to make a lrp package for it, and put it out on the net.

Thanks!
 
That's basically what I've been working on for the 3rd release of Klinux, the ability to write just the dnetc.ini file back to
the end of the floppy after being setup once.

The average Klinux.img is around 1410k leaving +/- 30k to write to without overwriting the image.
The dnetc.ini shouldn't be much over 300 bytes, so shouldn't be a problem.

I pretty much have the script(s) done, that does XXXX if YYYY is present, or does ZZZZ if it's not present.

This is pretty much the same thing Cory was trying to do with his distro.
I'm still trying to work out how to create a small mountable partition on the last few sectors of the floppy, and copy the
dnetc.ini file to it.
This is not as easy as it seems, at least for me, because I'm having to learn as I go.

If anyone has any tips on writing to the end of a floppy, I'd like to hear them.

<edit> for spelling
 
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