DevKit8600 FAQ
How to create ramdisk under Linux
Q1: How to alter an existing Root File System?
Let’s assume there is a compressed file system named ramdisk.gz. We could realize alteration on it by the following steps:
1. Uncompress the file into an image file; #cd ramdisk.gz #gunzip ramdisk.gz
2. Mount the uncompressed image file to realize alteration; <nowiki>#mkdir /mnt/loop #mount –o loop ramdisk /mnt/loop</nowiki> #cd /mnt/loop Now the contents of the file system can be added, removed, or modified as required.
3. Unmount the image file; #cd ramdisk #umount /mnt/loop
4. Create a compressed file by using the altered file system; #gzip –v9 ramdisk
Q2: How to create a new Root File System? (Approach one)
1. Create a temporary mounting point for loop devices; #mkdir /mnt/loop
2. Create a 15M temporary file; #dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/loop_tmp bs=1k count=15360 The size of the temporary file could be changed by adjusting the value of the parameter count;
3. Associate device file with the temporary file; #losetup /dev/loop0 /tmp/loop_tmp If a message ‘ioctl:LOOP_SET_FD: device is busy’ appears, it indicates that the device /dev/loop0 is still associated with another file. Command losetup /dev/loop0 can be used to view the device, and remove it with parameter -d;
4. Format /dev/loop0 as ext2 file system; #mke2fs –m 0 /dev/loop0
5. Mount the virtual disk on the mounting point /mnt/loop; #mount –t ext2 /dev/loop0 /mnt/loop;
6. Copy all the required files to the virtual disk by the command cp -af;
7. Move from current directory /mnt/loop to another directory by the command cd, and then unmount the file system; #cd /xx (xx means any directories except /mnt/loop)
- umount /mnt/loop
The file at /tmp/loop_tmp is the image of file system.
8. Compress the image file to create a file system;
- gzip –v9 /tmp/loop_tmp >/tftpboot/ramdisk.gz
or
- gzip –v9 /tmp/loop_tmp
(Approach two)
1. Create a temporary mounting point for loop devices;
#mkdir /mnt/loop
2. Create a 15M temporary file;
#dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/loop_tmp bs=1k count=15360
3. Format loop_tmp as ext2 file system;
#mke2fs –F –v –m 0 /tmp/loop_tmp
4. Mount the formatted temporary file;
#munt –o loop /tmp/loop_tmp /mnt/loop
5. Copy all the required files to the temporary file by the command cp –af to create an image file;
6. Unmount the created image file;
#umount /mnt/loop
7. Compress the image file to create a file system;
#gzip –v9 /tmp/loop_tmp