Hello, I have a semi related question. I see that the OLPC project uses buildroot to create a root filesystem. I've done the same for a few projects. I'm wondering though, how they convert the filesystem to a disk image. I went over the docs on the wiki and used google, and I don't know how they get a disk image from the filesystems it creates.
Hi,
On Sat, Sep 30, 2006 at 09:59:21AM -0600, Nathanael D. Noblet wrote:
I have a semi related question. I see that the OLPC project uses buildroot to create a root filesystem. I've done the same for a few projects. I'm wondering though, how they convert the filesystem to a disk image. I went over the docs on the wiki and used google, and I don't know how they get a disk image from the filesystems it creates.
You mean a way to convert an arbitrary filesystem (with any OS on it, be it Linux, Windows, or whatever) into a QEMU image?
That would be very interesting indeed, not only for LinuxBIOS / OLPC. Does anybody know if or how it can be done?
Uwe.
On Sun, 2006-10-08 at 17:28 +0200, Uwe Hermann wrote:
Hi,
On Sat, Sep 30, 2006 at 09:59:21AM -0600, Nathanael D. Noblet wrote:
I have a semi related question. I see that the OLPC project uses buildroot to create a root filesystem. I've done the same for a few projects. I'm wondering though, how they convert the filesystem to a disk image. I went over the docs on the wiki and used google, and I don't know how they get a disk image from the filesystems it creates.
You mean a way to convert an arbitrary filesystem (with any OS on it, be it Linux, Windows, or whatever) into a QEMU image?
That would be very interesting indeed, not only for LinuxBIOS / OLPC. Does anybody know if or how it can be done?
I found out that qemu will run from an ext2 filesystem image. Which is neat I guess, however it is still rather difficult sometimes to work in this manner. What would be really great for my setup would be to have qemu use a chrooted directory. No image mess, it can write wherever it wants, and when it isn't working, so can I. Once it is all setup, image it and add your kernel and be done with it. Using the ext2 filesystem image is pretty good though.
On Mon, Oct 09, 2006 at 12:29:45PM -0600, Nathanael D. Noblet wrote:
I found out that qemu will run from an ext2 filesystem image. Which is neat I guess, however it is still rather difficult sometimes to work in this manner. What would be really great for my setup would be to have qemu use a chrooted directory.
You could make a big image and mount it loopback somewhere to be able to work on it. You may have to remount it -r for qemu to be happy though..
//Peter
I have a semi related question. I see that the OLPC project uses buildroot to create a root filesystem. I've done the same for a few projects. I'm wondering though, how they convert the filesystem to a disk image. I went over the docs on the wiki and used google, and I don't know how they get a disk image from the filesystems it creates.
I think you are a bit confused with what OLPC buildrom does. Note thats 'buildrom' not 'buildroot'. OLPC buildrom is based on buildroot but has been customized for our use by Jordan Crouse of AMD.
The output of buildrom is a 1 MiB ROM image called 'linuxbios.rom' that is ready to be programmed into the onboard flash. It contains linuxbios, EC, VSA code and linux kernel payload.
The qemu images are created by Redhat in a totally separate build process and other than the fact that linuxbios.rom is included in the images have little to do with buildrom.