Installing Slackware 10.1 on a PC110

Kernel configuration

These instructions are intended for use with kernel version 2.4.29, and not with any of the kernels included with the Slackware 10.1 distribution.

The stock kernel requires a patch before $ make config will produce a configuration appropriate for an i486. Alternatively, skip the $ make config stage and use this configuration.

Boot sequence

Booting with / on a PCMCIA device is a bit tricky. There are two ways to do it:

1. Add "PCMCIA" to the start-up disk choices in the BIOS, or
2. Use an initial ram disk to load the pcmcia modules.

The first option is easier -- the BIOS takes over the slot with the Microdrive in, and the other one is free for other devices. This works for booting, but the BIOS doesn't seem to be able to wake the disk up after a suspend-resume cycle. It used to work with the original type III PCMCIA disk, so it seems the Microdrive needs to be prodded in a different way to revive it.

The solution is to create a PCMCIA-aware initrd to initialise the PCMCIA controller before / is mounted. /sbin/pcinitrd, part of the pcmcia-cs package, will do most of the work. The ramdisk it creates uses ash to execute /linuxrc, so make sure ash is installed before running pcinitrd. The ramdisk created by pcinitrd isn't quite complete; add the missing libraries and binaries like so:

root@carrot:~# /sbin/pcinitrd initrd
2400+0 records in
2400+0 records out
mke2fs 1.35 (28-Feb-2004)
1836K/2357K used
root@carrot:~# mount -o loop initrd /mnt/
root@carrot:~# cp /sbin/insmod.old /mnt/bin/
root@carrot:~# cp /lib/libblkid.so.1 /mnt/lib/
root@carrot:~# cp /lib/libuuid.so.1 /mnt/lib/
root@carrot:~# cp /lib/modules/2.4.29/kernel/drivers/pcmcia/i82365.o /mnt/lib/pcmcia
root@carrot:~# cp /lib/modules/2.4.29/kernel/drivers/ide/legacy/ide-cs.o /mnt/lib/pcmcia
root@carrot:~# ldconfig -v -r /mnt
ldconfig: Can't open configuration file /etc/ld.so.conf: No such file or directory
ldconfig: Can't stat /usr/lib: No such file or directory
/lib:
  libuuid.so.1 -> libuuid.so.1
  libblkid.so.1 -> libblkid.so.1
  ld-linux.so.2 -> ld-linux.so.2
  libc.so.6 -> libc.so.6
root@carrot:~# umount /mnt/
root@carrot:~# gzip initrd
root@carrot:~# cp initrd.gz /boot/initrd

Set the [http://www.basterfield.com/pc110/bios/startup.htm BIOS startup sequence] to "FDD-1", "HDD-1", in that order¹. /boot is mounted on /dev/hda1, the 4MB internal flash disk (Hard disk 1 in the BIOS).