[UK] Gentoo on a CF

[uxbod]

Hi,

I am looking to build a Mini-ITX server for use with Asterisk but have a few questions :-

1) I presume I can use any sort of CF reader/writer eg. Sandisk Imagemate ?
2) Do I have to buy a certain type of CF card or could I use say a Sandisk Extreme IV ?
3) It is possible to use something like Qemu to test the CF boot image ? or do you have to install in the target hardware ?

Many thanks.

[el-chaote]

Hey uxbod, how is your project going?

Basically it doesn't really matter which card reader nor which CF you use... as long as your board (the bios, respectively) is able to boot from an usb device In my opinion, it will just have an influence on the read/write speed. I recently used a card reader from hama to boot from two different CFs (both from SanDisk, one an Extreme III, the other an ultra II) and it worked without any problems.

However, what do you mean with point 3? Do you already have an image and you want to test it? Or do you want to test your CF and card reader? For the latter, just use one of the thousands howtos on booting from an usb stick (eg. Slax )

Do you already have a Mini-ITX board in mind? At the moment I'm playing with an PC/104 board (x86 architecture) from MPI. It has an onboard CF socket using the PATA interface. There might be Mini-ITX boards with a similar solution, though i've not heard of it yet At least, there are IDE sockets available

Just ask if you have more questions

[uxbod]

Will probably get a VIA EPIA13000G board and this case http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=10403 as it has a CF reader in the front.

With respect to point three I shall be building the image on my laptop, and it would be nice to be able to test the image without having to keep moving the CF between machines. If I could just point say QEMU as the CCF reader attached to my laptop and get it to boot that would be great.

Instead of CF may even look at something like this :- http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=11279

[baaann]

Astlinux may be of interest? It is apparently built on a gentoo base.

[uxbod]

Yeah but it has to much included in it. Want to build a streamlined Asterisk install with a hardened Gentoo install

[el-chaote]

I would recommend to install gentoo directly on your target hardware. Why do you want to build it on your notebook first?

Just to let you know, I've got some serious problems with the PATA interface on the board for my current project (the one mentioned before). I can boot from an SATA drive but not from an CF using the onboard socket and any recent kernel. As far as I know, there is a problem with a kernel update concerning the IDE management and libata3.0. However, it worked with a 2.6.18 kernel version and libata2.0 :S This is my interace:

[uxbod]

As I will be building other bits and pieces from source I don't want to clutter the CF with code I like to build in a separate environment and then copy over the binaries.

[el-chaote]

Okay but then you have to crosscompile for your target hardware... you know that?

[uxbod]

Its X86 but have read the embedded wiki just in case

[el-chaote]

Of course it's x86 but your target system will certainly have some other compiler settings don't forget that

I still think it's better and easier to set up gentoo directly on the target system At least I would

[minor_prophets]