Gday all!

I'm trying to set up the boot from MMC steps - I'm using this document here:

http://maemo.org/community/wiki/howt..._from_mmc_card

After having partitioned it successfully. I get to the step:

# ./targnu cf - -C /floppy . | ./targnu xvf - -C /opt

And it seems to freeze on certain files. I left it overnight just to see if it would get through and it didn't. I don't remember the file name it got stuck on last time, but this time its /usr/lib/microb-engine/libfreebl3.so

Any hints or tips? I'm ultimately trying to get KDE on it.

Cheers

Actually, I just ran it again turning wireless off and it seemed to finish but came up with this message:
/.targnu: .: implausibly old time stamp 1970-01-01 10:00:00.

I'm a bit scared to try the next steps in the doco:
# umount /opt
# umount /floppy
# chroot /mnt/initfs cal-tool --set-root-device ask:mmc2
# shutdown -r now

Actually scratch that, I saw this post:

http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ead.php?t=8590

That says its a warning only.

However, after following all the steps I don't get a boot menu to ask for which to boot from. My n800 does seem to be running faster though. Is there a way I can check what I'm actually booting from?

Here is what df says:

~ $ df
Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/mtdblock4 2048 2048 0 100% /mnt/initfs
none 512 68 444 13% /mnt/initfs/tmp
/dev/mtdblock4 257536 157028 100508 61% /
none 512 68 444 13% /tmp
none 1024 68 956 7% /dev
/dev/mmcblk1p1 500228 383560 116668 77% /media/mmc1
/dev/mmcblk0p1 479744 131536 348208 27% /media/mmc2
~ $

If I start again from scratch (as in repartition etc) will it be OK? I don't want to end up with my system either unbootable or parts of my cards not partitioned correctly...


Heres my memory card screenshots:

Or, failing any advice on how to go forward, how do I safely format my mmc card and go back to the way it was? I really only wanted to play with KDE but searching through the forums it seems people have made their devices inoperable and I'm not that keen on that idea.

You've booted from internal flash - your root partition is mounted on internal flash

when / should be mounted on /dev/mmcblk0p2 if you had booted from mmc2.

I don't know why it hasn't worked for you - have you installed bootmenu correctly? There's a thread around these parts which pretty much automates the cloning process for you. You would have to try really, really hard to make your device inoperable - at worst you would just have to reflash it's internal memory.

Thanks Milhouse - so I should be able to start again? I was using the manual instructions at http://maemo.org/community/wiki/HowT..._your_MMC_card for setting up the card and http://maemo.org/community/wiki/howt..._from_mmc_card
to set up the boot stuff.

I'm not sure if bootmenu installed correctly, as far as I can tell theres nothing in these instructions that mentions bootmenu (I did install initfs_flasher.tgz though, twice just to be sure).

A script that automates it would be handy, as I'm sure I typed something in incorrectly. I'll have a hunt aruond and see if I can find it.

If you installed initfs_flasher.tgz, you would have ended up with a initfs_flasher directory. If you look in that directory (cd to it, then ls -la), you will see a README file, which contains instructions concerning editing the bootmenu.

Hmmm perhaps something did go wrong with the initfs_flasher install... as when I type

find |grep -i initfs_flasher

I can only see it in the directory where I downloaded the .tgz file to and uncompressed it. So reading the readme there, it seems I have to edit the example bootmenu.conf files, rename them, then run ... initfs_flash again? I just tried that then rebooted and have the same result.

I've found so many links with conflicting instructions I'm a little confused as to what to do. I've clearly done something wrong along the way, I just want to know how to start again... is it safe enough to repartition my MMC card following the instructions at:

http://maemo.org/community/wiki/HowT..._your_MMC_card

Failing that, I would like to know how to get my MMC card back to the way it was, with just one big partition?

Thanks for the assistance, I know I've stuffed up here so I appreciate any help!

Admira: Let me try to give you a simple approach with which to start again. You perhaps already know this, but here are three basic things you need to accomplish:

1. Partition your card so you have two partitions: One for the operating system clone and the other for your data which you will wish to store.

2. After partitioning, you will want to clone your operating system to the appropriate partition on the card.

3. After you have cloned the operating system to the card, you will need to install the boot menu in flash to choose to access either the flash operating system or the cloned operating system on start-up of your N800.

Milhouse has devised a wonderfully simple way of doing the first two of these things, and Fanoush the third.

See Milhouse's thread here. http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ead.php?t=8631

Follow his initial instructions closely, with the exception of his initial instructions regarding partitioning. For that, read further in the same thread for a dialogue he and I had in which he ultimately devised a better system of partitioning each card based on the amount of memory on the card.

I suggest you partition the card and clone the operating system while the card is in the internal slot, which is what Milhouse's instructions have you do. Then when finished, you can transfer the card to the external slot.

Fanoush's bootmenu has the means for bringing up cloned operating systems in either the internal or external slots, or both, which was my earlier case. The bootmenu command for the external slot, as I recall it, uses the number 12 to identify the external slot.

Keep me (us) informed of your progress. Regards, Jim

Hi Jim,

Thanks for that - have to admit, this is making me feel incredibly stupid ... its still a bit confusing to me, which is why I'm suggesting I forget it and just try to get my MMC back to original status. After reading through that thread though, this is what I will do this evening:

Install initfs_flash first (from http://fanoush.wz.cz/maemo/#initfs)

1. Partition your card so you have two partitions: One for the operating system clone and the other for your data which you will wish to store.

For this I will run:

#sfdisk /dev/mmcblk0 -uM

/dev/mmcblk0p1: 0,1300,06
/dev/mmcblk0p2: ,,,
/dev/mmcblk0p3:
/dev/mmcblk0p4:

2. After partitioning, you will want to clone your operating system to the appropriate partition on the card.

For this I will run:
As user "user"

mkdir ~/bin
cd ~/bin
wget http://www.nmacleod.com/nokia/bin/nupgrade.sh
wget http://www.nmacleod.com/nokia/bin/tar
chmod +x nupgrade.sh tar

As user "root"

Pass parameters to the nupgrade.sh script to control progress, as follows
o 0 - Create ext2 filesystem on partition 2 of the Internal memory card
o 1 - Mount partition 2 as /opt
o 2 - Mount rootfs as /floppy
o 3 - Perform cloning process
o 4 - Commit filesystem updates and unmount /floppy and /opt
Code:

sudo gainroot
cd /home/user/bin
./nupgrade.sh 0
./nupgrade.sh 1
./nupgrade.sh 2
./nupgrade.sh 3
./nupgrade.sh 4
reboot

3. After you have cloned the operating system to the card, you will need to install the boot menu in flash to choose to access either the flash operating system or the cloned operating system on start-up of your N800.

I can't seem to find where that happens in the thread, unless its part of what I've already got above?

Anyway I'll give that a go tonight and let you know ... assuming that works, I'll put it all together in one document and post it on my blog and possible either edit the existing wikis or create a new one.