booting ext3

[Coopy]

Hey,
I installed Arch Linux ARM install on an external hard drive which is formatted to ext3.
So after installing the command:
/usr/sbin/fw_setenv usb_rootfstype ext3
made sure that the machine boots to Arch Linux ARM install after reboot.

Well, how to make that change permament? At the moment the machine boots to the original OS when rebooting.
I looked through the script made by jeff with no idea what to do

With regards,
Coopy

[peaslaker]

U-Boot has to be able to read a partition to find the kernel.

U-Boot can't read ext3.

Setting commands for the kernel to boot a rootfstype of ext3 does no good if U-Boot can;t find the kernel in the first place.

Your options are:
1. Partition your disk to have a boot (ext2) partition and a separate root (ext3) partition and change your boot partitions to match

2. Do a NAND install using UBIT which does all the hard work for you. (but I would say that seeing as I developed UBIT)

[Coopy]

Thanks for the reply

Iam a bit confused
Why is U-Boot able too boot to my ext3 partition after I excecuted
/usr/sbin/fw_setenv usb_rootfstype ext3 and then reboot?

[peaslaker]

The rootfs can be ext3, but the boot partition cannot be ext3. The boot partition is the location of the kernel. Unless you go out of your way to place the kernel somewhere bootable you're not going to get anywhere.

'rootfstype' is a parameter that is passed to the kernel. It is only relevant at the point when a kernel has been loaded into memory and is initialising. If the only place your kernel exists is on an ext3 partition, U-Boot cannot find it and cannot load it into memory.

[Samson]

uboot ext2load is able to load kernel image from ext3 partition so the boot partition can also be ext3...

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'Loading file "/boot/uImage" from usb device 0:1 (usbda1)
1 bytes read
Found bootable drive on usb 0:1
Loading file "/boot/uImage" from usb device 0:1 (usbda1)
1434220 bytes read
Loading file "/boot/uInitrd" from usb device 0:1 (usbda1)
4736952 bytes read
## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 00800000 ...
Image Name: Linux-2.6.32-5-kirkwood
Image Type: ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
Data Size: 1434156 Bytes = 1.4 MiB
Load Address: 00008000
Entry Point: 00008000
Verifying Checksum ... OK
## Loading init Ramdisk from Legacy Image at 01100000 ...
Image Name: initramfs-2.6.32-5-kirkwood
Image Type: ARM Linux RAMDisk Image (gzip compressed)
Data Size: 4736888 Bytes = 4.5 MiB
Load Address: 00000000
Entry Point: 00000000
Verifying Checksum ... OK
Loading Kernel Image ... OK
OK

Starting kernel ...

root@debian:~# mount
rootfs on / type rootfs (rw)
/dev/sda1 on / type ext3 (rw,noatime,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered)

~# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs 1.9G 290M 1.5G 17% /
none 60M 32K 60M 1% /dev
/dev/sda1 1.9G 290M 1.5G 17% /
tmpfs 62M 0 62M 0% /lib/init/rw
tmpfs 62M 0 62M 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 62M 0 62M 0% /tmp

')

[peaslaker]

My previous comments were out of place and were based on observations made when I was dealing with a dodgy USB stick. Confused me at the time because ext3 will mount as ext2 anyway.

The OP's question, although ostensibly about booting from ext3 was also about a situation given by a problem with the USB boot medium.

A huge number of booting problems are caused by USB sticks not initialising reliably.

[Samson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Coopy', 'T')hanks for the reply

Iam a bit confused
Why is U-Boot able too boot to my ext3 partition after I excecuted
/usr/sbin/fw_setenv usb_rootfstype ext3 and then reboot?

[Samson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('peaslaker', 'A') huge number of booting problems are caused by USB sticks not initialising reliably.