[ARMedslack] N00b alert: "Kernel image must be specified" (Qemu - Windows host)

[Ottavio]

On 16 August 2011 01:01, Dave Dowell <dowelld at netscape.net> wrote:

> On ARM systems you always need to tell it to load the kernel image. What
> happens then is very dependent upon how things have been built.
>
> For example it's possible to build a combined image where the kernel and the
> initrd are rolled into one package, or more often they're kept as seperate
> images.
> In the case of ARMedslack the kernel and the initrd are kept seperate, this
> makes modifying things easier.
>
> The initrd itself can do different things dependent on how it was designed.
> For example the initrd on the Sheevaplug uClibc Debian system is the actual
> root filesystem, the same is true for the iConnect Debian uClibc system.
>
> The ARMedslack initrd is only a initial ramdisk, which contains relevant
> modules (in your specific case the module for ext2fs) to allow the kernel to
> access the real root device. So the initrd is about giving the kernel the
> ability to access the real root device, so that it can mount the real root
> filesystem and continue the system bringup, read up on pivot root to find
> out more about this.
>
> It should be possible to compile a kernel to include the necessary drivers
> to directly access the real root device, although I've not tried that yet.
> It is possible to combine a kernel and initrd into a single image, and thus
> only load one file into memory and boot that, but that's not the design in
> play here.
> It is possible to use an initrd as the real rootdev, but reducing it to fit
> into the flash memory available onboard most ARM devices requires a lot of
> work yet, and isn't really in scope for the straight port of Slackware to
> ARM.
>
> I hope that covers your questions?
> Thanks
> Dave

Thanks Dave, it does answer my questions, although I still need to to
find my ABC of ARM computing. Not having a real device to to play with
(but I am thinking of one in particular, so watch this space) I still
have to connect the bits and pieces from QEMU to the real world while
in the x86/64 world it's a bit more straightforward.

-- 
Ottavio


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