booting Familiar using HaRET on an iPAQ h39xx

Hi

For experimentation, I have been trying to boot my iPAQ h3955 from the
CF or SD card using HaRET. I tried following the advise in the wiki
concerning this, specially the CardBoot and BootingLinuxFromCF.
However, I think I might have had the wrong expectations for this
little project: I haven't been able to do what I wanted, which was
specifically to boot a full GPE or OPIE Familiar filesystem.

In the CardBoot section of the wiki I read that it was possible to
start HaRET from one card to boot into an image stored in the CF card.
I failed in my attempt by using the zImage from the Familiar 0.8.4
distro. I guessed that the ext2 filesytem support was not compiled in.
My "own" kernel, compiled using the HH CVS sources and configured to
include the ext2 driver failed to boot (just filled the screen with
weird graphics), so I resorted to Erik's PXA zImage and initrd. I got
my best results that way; the kernel booted ok, the initrd image
loaded fine, the modules also loaded. I had to alter a little the
linuxrc in that image to adapt to my card partitions and stuff.

However, it stopped at the moment of mounting the rootfs partition
(partition 1 on the CF card, ext2 filesystem). Analizing the output of
the linuxrc script, I noticed that while it creates a symlink for
/dev/hda1, the `ls /dev/ide* ` command gives back no results. Hence
the mounting failure. I don't know why that happens, since the CF
sleeve drivers load ok, as well as the pcmcia and all.

Time for some questions. First, is there any possibility that my setup
will be bootable (using HaRET 0.5.0 from the SD card to try to access
a rootfs located on an ext2-formatted CF card on a sleeve), or should
I drop this idea and stick to using the bootldr and two partitions on
the CF?

And second, even if I dropped my current setup and followed strictly
the setup proposed on the BootingLinuxFromCF section of the wiki (or
the "normal" one at the CardBoot section), would I have any chance to
boot into a *full* GPE or OPIE Familiar 0.8.4 system? Or maybe this
can only be achieved flashing the iPAQ?

Well, that was a long message! Thanks for reading this far and I hope
someone has answers or pointers.


-- 
/* Juan Pablo Ramirez
 * <ROT13>whfg nabgure yvahk trrx</ROT13>
 * GPG Key 0xE5296C68
 */
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