Re: Scripts for modifying LNX-BBC 2.1

On Thu, Aug 14, 2003 at 07:16:33PM -0700, Jeff Mock wrote:
> 
> I'm a big fan of LNX-BBC.  For me it's a fantastic rescue disc.
>  
> I wanted a simple way to make small modifications lnx-bbc to suit
> my own local needs.  Here is a set of scripts for version 2.1 of the
> lnx-bbc for unfolding the directories of a lnx-bbc disc image, making
> modifications, and folding it back into an ISO image.

Hear, hear!

> For small casual changes I found building the entire disc from
> lnx-bbc source a bit unwieldy, these scripts make it easy for me
> to tweak a disc for a special purpose.

I'm very glad to see this.  Yay, Jeff!  I've never been able to build
the LNX-BBC tree -- like Robert Withrow, I got puzzling compile-time errors
when trying to build the compiler:
|   * make build fails building libgcc2:
|
|       /home/bwithrow/gar/devel/gcc/work/build.d/i386-pc-linux-gnu/gcc/xgcc -B/home/bwithrow/gar/devel/gcc/work/build.d/i386-pc-linux-gnu/gcc/ -B/home/bwithrow/garbuild/i386-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ -I/home/bwithrow/garbuild/i386-pc-linux-gnu/include -O2  -DCROS
|           ../../gcc-2.95.3/gcc/libgcc2.c -o ${name}.o; \
|       if [ $? -eq 0 ] ; then true; else exit 1; fi; \
|       i386-pc-linux-gnu-ar rc tmplibgcc2.a ${name}.o; \
|       rm -f ${name}.o; \
|     done
|     _muldi3
|     ../../gcc-2.95.3/gcc/libgcc2.c:41: stdlib.h: No such file or directory
|     ../../gcc-2.95.3/gcc/libgcc2.c:42: unistd.h: No such file or directory
|     make[10]: *** [libgcc2.a] Error 1

In my case, that was building STABLE (as of April 2003) in a RH 7.2 environment,
with RH's cc/gcc replaced with gcc 2.95.3, and using libc 2.2.4.
Neither Robert nor I could find a way around this, so we gave up.

I've wanted to use LNX-BBC, but the CD image lacked just a few things I needed --
the e1000 driver, and maybe a version of mke2fs that doesn't enable
filesystem features that older versions of e2fsck can't understand.  But with
the above obstacle, I couldn't change anything.   Now I can.

  [...]
>     I would like to be able to build a ram resident lnx-bbc.  That is,
>     I would like the lnx-bbx disc to boot, copy everything it needs
>     (50MB) into a ram disk, unmount the cdrom and run out of ram.
>     I wanted this primarily for my laptop so I can travel with a
>     lnx-bbc disc, a couple of backup DVD-Rs, and restore my system
>     using just the DVD drive in the laptop.

That would be a neat trick!
 
> Hopefully this will be useful to other people and are a kind of
> proof-of-concept of a wishlist for future lnx-bbc releases.  here's
> the stuff:
> 
>     http://www.mock.com/bbcmods
> 
> Documentation in the README
> jeff

Thanks!

    Stuart Levy