[pocket-linux] Eureka, almost ...

[David Horton]

Rainer <littlecloud at vif.com> wrote:

> hello,
> 
> got through ch. 8 with no major problems. the suggestion to try
> 	# mke2fs -m0 b=1024 /dev/ram7 bs=1k count=4096
> didn't work, it returned
> 	# mke2fs: bad blocks count - /dev/ram7
> i guess those ramdisks are carved in stone at boot!


I think there is a typo in there.  It should be:
  'mke2fs -m0 -b=1024 /dev/ram7 4096'
The 'dd' command uses 'count=', but 'mke2fs' does it differently.


> the soft links from 
> /proc/self/fd and /fd to ~/staging/dev worked fine, though i'm still 
> trying to get my head around it.
> 


Do 'ls -l /dev' after you've booted to the diskettes and it becomes more
clear.


> i must say i had a gas entering my notes to /home/rainer once i booted 
> P.L. and just plain looking around the sytem. i love it's finiteness 
> and yet there's a lot to it. thanks Dave for starting this project.


Glad you like it.  I think it's cool to see how much stuff can be
crammed into a couple diskettes.  Wait 'til you get to the audio player
in App. A.


> i 
> hope to continue with the appendix soon. speaking of which, would any 
> conflicts arise if i compiled  more than one souncard into the kernel 
> so i could run it on a few different systems?
> 


I've never had a system with more than one soundcard, but I would assume
that if there are no port, IRQ or DMA conflicts that it should work. 
You'll probably need to set up more /dev files to access both.


> ... delusions of grandeur are already assailing me, i could call it 
> RastaLinux and have a neat ascii screensaver with a dreadlock 
> disappearing behind a cloud of smoke ...
> 

If you have a screen saver like that I would love to have a copy.  The
Tastytronic guys (who host this mailing list) have a project called
asciiweb that you might want to check out. 
(http://tastytronic.net/asciiweb/)

> thanks
> 

When you get done with the Pocket Linux Guide and you want to go further
take a look at: http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/architect

Dave