Gentoo 2006.1 livecd with JMicron-Support (JMB363/361/36x)

kernelOfTruth

Gentoo 2006.1 livecd with JMicron-Support (JMB363/361/36x), "small gentoo", final release (x86)

the latest versions are r5 & r6 for x86, r3 & r4 for amd64

the stable, experimental & enhanced experimental (aka testing) releases are deprecated and are going to be removed from all mirrors soon

The goal of "small gentoo" is to provide a liveCD to support (most) of the most cutting edge hardware / features, yet stay as close as possible to the original gentoo-livecd

each release is being tested by myself for several hours, simulating an installation of gentoo

Hi there,

if you have problems with installing gentoo from a CD/DVD-Drive which is connected to the Jmicron-Chipset,
such as P5W DH Deluxe or P5B
or have ide-harddrives (probably S-ATA harddrives work too) connected to the JMicron-Controller (JMB361/363/36x)
then give this cd a try,

the first versions (stable, experimental) were based on the excellent gentoo 2006.1 minimal livecd & only the initrd & kernel were modified / updated
to enable support for newer hardware
2.6.18-rc4-no2 "To be..." | (Super Fix/Stability Attempt?)
kudos to cheater1034 for this perfect working kernel (and of course Andrew Morton for his patchset & the other kernel hackers

)
also big thanks to the gentoo programmers who created this fine piece of software (I love the initrd of this CD :wink:

)
kernel-module loading doesn't work so don't bother :wink:

(this applied to the stable & experimental release; now module-loading should work on the most of the newer releases)

the most recent versions are now based on the latest mm-sources (thanks to Andrew Morton

), which are working for me
the kernel is "driven" by genkernel
in contrast to the original / "official" gentoo-livecd "small gentoo" has some "bleeding edge" parts, such as: glibc-2.5 (post-r1 [x86], amd64-r1 to amd64-r3), support for reiser4,

I'm looking forward to your feedback

Thanks to MrGreen, for hosting

& for TuomasT for providing a mirror

For more information on "small gentoo", the Gentoo-based liveCD with JMicron-Support:
home of "small gentoo" (link)

One word of advice:
If you plan to use reiser4 for / (root), then don't enable RC_PARALLEL_STARTUP=yes
since that may lead to the famous Segmentation fault of fsck.reiser4

don't also use readahead-list and readahead-list-early, however it works for me, so if you're into experiments, try it :wink:

HAVE A LOT OF FUN :wink:

kerneloftruth

last update: 10/26/2006
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Hardcore Gentoo Linux user since 2004

WilliamHeuts · n00b Joined: 04 Dec 2003 Posts: 29

Excellent stuff! Got a basic install on my Gigabyte-965P-DS3 motherboard. Now figuring out some other stuff, but I can boot to a CLI

cheater1034 · Veteran Joined: 09 Sep 2004 Posts: 1558

Do you need this on the jmb360 as well?

My new DFI 975x will use that as the raid controller, I don't know if that is already supported or not.

Thanks
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playerx · n00b Joined: 21 Oct 2004 Posts: 46

I still don't have the board so can't test right now, but it sounds great

would it be asking too much if I asked for x86_64 one?

kernelOfTruth · Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 9:32 am Post subject:

@WilliamHeuts:
thanks !

@playerx:
no prob, but that will take some time, depending how many time I have to make a trip to ~amd64
I'm a little busy right now
(I'm normally working in the ~x86 version of gentoo :wink:

)

@cheater1034:
yes, I it should support more jmicron-chipsets than 363 & 361, so it should work with your chipset, too
in kernel the exact setting's called

playerx · n00b Joined: 21 Oct 2004 Posts: 46

That's ok, I guess we can boot with 2006.1 having them as generic ides passing 'all-generic-ide', so it'll be a little slow to load from the cd, but the load from the minimal cd is hm.. minimal

then install a good kernel and we're good to go, don't bother making one unless you really want to

Thanks

TuomasT · n00b Joined: 02 Sep 2006 Posts: 2

Your patched LiveCD is the first I can boot Gentoo up with Abit AB9 Pro and optical drive in the Jmicron controller. Also passing all-generic-ide as a boot up parameter ("gentoo all-generic-ide") had no effect with 2006.0 or 2006.1, which I guess is because of Abit's failure to make the JMB363 mode selectable in bios unlike what other manufacturers have done. It's locked up in IDE mode.

Unfortunately I need to install amd64 and it seems for the time being I am unable to do so, without amd64 LiveCD with Jmicron supporting kernel.

Download of your .iso was very slow so I put the image on my server: livecd.iso (x86 version).

irondog · Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 1:29 pm Post subject:

Thanks for pointing me to this libata driver. I've got my IDE devices to work by using the generic IDE driver. The problem with this P5B board is, that the kernel thinks the IDE channels are disabled.

You can actually get it up-and-running with the (non-libata) IDE driver as well by commenting out these lines in drivers/ide/pci/generic.c

kernelOfTruth · Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 2:04 pm Post subject:

@playerx:
ok

, perhaps with cheater1034's and eremini's new no-sources release I'll be able to make one (I'd like to try out reiser4 on amd64, too)

@TuomasT:
do you mind, if I add your server to my post / mirrorlist ?
that's bad news, that "all-generc-ide" didn't work for you ...
what I'm missing actually is a 2.6.18-rc4-mm2 based kernel with unionfs & squashfs (3.0) support working (in amd64)
then I could create one

@irondog:
thanks, I'll try this out, when I have more time, ...
so perhaps a livecd in amd64 is possible :roll:

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Hardcore Gentoo Linux user since 2004

irondog · Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 2:45 pm Post subject:

Oh, I just missed it. Kernel 2.6.18-rc5-mm1 is out. This kernel has true support for the JMicron chips.

cheater1034 · Veteran Joined: 09 Sep 2004 Posts: 1558

Thanks bro,
I'll be one to request reiser4 so it can get me on my feet with my new system

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TuomasT · n00b Joined: 02 Sep 2006 Posts: 2

kernelOfTruth: Feel free to add it to the mirror list.

Perhaps a newer kernel will support everything needed to create amd64 LiveCD with Jmicron support. I'm sure creating one wouldn't be a waste of time, as there are lot's of people with new Intel P965 mobos with only the JBM363 controller providing IDE.

irondog · Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 4:01 pm Post subject:

If anyone feels like recompiling the kernel for the amd64 livecd, here is the backport patch to get the jmicron IDE driver of 2.6.18-rc5-mm1 working on 2.6.17-gentoo-r7.

Here it is:
http://tienstra4.flatnet.tudelft.nl/~gerte/jmicron-ide-2.6.17-gentoo-r7.txt

This is not the libata code in the first post of the topic. The libata code might be a little harder to backport.
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kernelOfTruth · Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 6:49 pm Post subject:

just in case someone needs a .config:

here's (almost) my whole working configuration. to make it clear
this is the configuration of the working computer (asus P5W DH Deluxe), not the livecd !

cheater1034 · Veteran Joined: 09 Sep 2004 Posts: 1558

kernelOfTruth · 2.6.18-rc4-no2

I'm working on it :wink:

I'm trying to create a livecd which in parts is based on the official livecd but with more tools, ...

Update:

I've got a problem here:
if I depmod inside the chroot, it spits out error-messages concerning the hosts-kernel
how can I tell depmod which kernel to look at ?
in debian there's a command like dpkg-reconfigure linuximage (found via google), but I need one for gentoo
is there in gentoo a similar command ?

spartas · Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 2:01 pm Post subject:

kernelOfTruth,

I've got the Gigabyte P965-based board with the JMicron chip here. I've booted your liveCD, and I get to the liveCD CLI, but it can't find the HD. I've tried both in IDE and AHCI modes. In AHCI, I can't find the CD drive in /dev either, but it does boot to a normal usable shell. /dev/cdrom points to hde, but hde doesn't exist.

My CD drive is IDE, and my HD is SATA.

phosphors · n00b Joined: 03 Sep 2006 Posts: 4

This is just a thanks for everybody's work on this. The non-hacker I am-- I was absolutely lost a few weeks ago when I bought a P5B motherboard and couldn't boot anything. Getting my box booting after lots of frustration has made me very happy. Now off to figure out how to install this to a USB hard drive and compile a driver for my Areca Raid controller... assuming that's all possible?

kernelOfTruth · Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 5:17 pm Post subject:

@spartas, phosphors:
Welcome to Gentoo
at the moment I'm pretty busy so this will take some time ...

@spartas:
this seems to be related due to limitations of the official gentoo-initrd (which I use), I'll look into it, (probably another modified initrd would help)

Update:
ok, some more /dev/* nodes are needed ... :roll:

@phosphors:
everything's possible !

to make it clear:
1) the livecd worked for you? great

2) you installed it on a usb hdd and are booting / working on it right now?
3) you would like to port the system to another harddrive connected to your Areca Raid controller?
was everything correct?

ok, for later reference I'll post some links (probably I'll / you need them later:
Debian Installations CDs with areca-support
Areca's ftp server / mirror with Linux drivers
Gentoo Howto Areca support
actually this shouldn't be a problem, but I don't know how this heavy patched kernel will work with the areca-drivers
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Hardcore Gentoo Linux user since 2004

kernelOfTruth · Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 6:38 pm Post subject:

@cheater1034:

LiveCD's released! "small gentoo", experimental release (x86)
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Hardcore Gentoo Linux user since 2004

phosphors · n00b Joined: 03 Sep 2006 Posts: 4

@kernelOfTruth

1) Yes, the livecd booted perfectly. On Asus P5B with Intel p965 chipset. Realtek ethernet works. Can see ide cdrom connected to motherboard ide controller (mb has default sata controller settings, "Enhanced" I believe). Can see usb cdrom. Can see usb hdd.

2) About to try to install over on the usb hdd and attempt to boot from it.
3) After 2 I'm going to see if I can compile an Areca driver and get from the usb hdd to the raid 5 array i have setup on the Areca controller.

Thanks for those Areca links! I'll report back later(i.e. tomorrowish, phosphors <- slowly learning)

spartas · Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 9:15 pm Post subject:

kernelOfTruth · Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 9:18 pm Post subject:

@spartas:

no, not yet :roll:

it's still based on the old initrd
the next release will (hopefully) solve your problems ...
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Hardcore Gentoo Linux user since 2004

kernelOfTruth · Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 4:29 pm Post subject:

@spartas, all:

a new release of my livecd (the last for x86) has been released:

It's now completely rewritten with an own-created initrd, probably it won't boot correctly
it now should support more "exotic" devices like /dev/hdi or /dev/sdf for booting

could you please give it a try? link to it

Thanks in advance for testing it

@spartas:
this release should boot with /dev/hde :wink:

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Hardcore Gentoo Linux user since 2004

thomasmue · n00b Joined: 02 Oct 2003 Posts: 73 Location: MTK,OF,WAK

Had no luck to boot your livecd on my SATA only system. The bootload of the CD runs, but then it tells that it cant find any device to load the initramfs. The only livecd I can boot from is 2006.0

Thomas