Minimal boot CD

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Date: 7 Dec 2004 17:48:20 -0800

I'm trying to learn how to make a bootable Linux CD with a bare minimum
of tools on it as I only need it to do a few things. I've spent hours
searching google and experimenting with some various methods explained
in articles I found, but none of them have panned out.

I've read the bootdisk howto but besides being seriously outdated, it
focuses on floppies.

So far I have been able to use ISOLINUX to create a bootable CD by
following the instructions at http://syslinux.zytor.com/iso.php

The CD boots, finds my kernel, and then panics because it can't find
anything else. That was obviously expected since I had not yet built
the root file system. But at least getting to that point assured me I
was on the right track.

I knew I needed some kind of sane working environment for the kernel to
load. Busybox was the first thing I thought of. I may one day be
interested in compiling everything I want from source, but for the time
being Busybox is absolutely perfect for what I want.

I'm just not sure how to proceed from the point I'm at now. I was
thinking I had to make an initrd image, mount it as a loop device, and
then install busybox to that location. I have done that. (Though I'm
not sure I did it right ... does the initrd have to be a specific
size?) I then updated my CD image to include the initrd image I
created. I reburned the CDRW and tried to boot from it.

The loader finds and loads vmlinuz and even finds and loads intird ...
but it still kernel panics. I didn't expect it to work the first time,
but I have tried reburning the CDRW a dozen times, trying a few
different things, and I'm getting nowhere.

The kernel panic I'm getting is:

Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on
unknown-block(0,0)

I think the problem may be with my /dev directory inside of my initrd
... but I'm not even sure if we are at that point yet when the kernel
panics. Do I need two /devs? One inside of the initrd for the ram
disk image and one outside of the initrd so the system can boot?

I'm pretty confused about that point. My ISO contains:

initrd.gz
isolinux.bin
isolinux.cfg
vmlinuz

Here are the lines I have in my isolinux.cfg:

timeout 10
default vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.gz load_ramdisk=1 ramdisk_blocksize=4096
root=/dev/rd/0

I compiled everything I needed into my kernel. No module support at
all. I included RAM disk support ((4096) Default RAM disk size) and
Initial RAM disk (initrd) support into the kernel.

I'm not sure if my isolinux.cfg is being read properly ... my timeout
setting of 10 seconds doesn't seem to work. It boots instantly.
(Though now that I'm writing this I'm thinking that might be
miliseconds?)

Also I'm not sure if "root=/dev/rd/0" is right. I copied that from
someone else's setup and I'm thinking it could be the source of my
current problem. But since there's no /dev on the CD to look at, I
don't know what it should be.

I feel like I'm pretty close to achieving my goal. Can someone help me
make the final leap?

• Previous message: Roger Larsson: "Re: PPC floating point in the kernel?"
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• Reply: Tauno Voipio: "Re: Minimal boot CD"
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