View source for Bootstrapping Alpine on PC Engines ALIX.3

{{Delete|Outdated since 2012, may not even be relevant anymore}}
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[[Category:Installation]]

Experience with bootstrapping 1.7.17 Alpine Linux on a CF card for PC Engines ALIX.3C2 LX800  (This information is based on the Soekris instructions)

We assume our CF reader is at /dev/sdb, with a 512+ MB CF formatted card loaded and will be mounted on /mnt/flash. We also assume root priviledges.

 export FLASHDEVICE=/dev/sdb1
 export MNT=/mnt/flash

First, we download the latest usbdrive tarball

 wget <nowiki>http://dev.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v1.7/usbdrive/alpine-1.7.17-i386.tar.gz</nowiki>

and unpack it on our CF card

 mount $FLASHDEVICE $MNT
 tar xzf ../alpine-1.7.17-i386.tar.gz -C $MNT

Next step is to tell syslinux and the kernel we are using a serial console.  We do so by creating a custom syslinux.cfg

 cat > $MNT/syslinux.cfg <<EOF
 serial 0 115200
 timeout 0
 default generic-alix
 
 label generic-alix
         kernel /kernel/generic/bzImage
         append initrd=/kernel/generic/hd-ext3.gz rw alpine_dev=hda1:vfat root_dev=none:tmpfs alpine_base=base.tar.bz2 pkg_dev=hda1:vfat pkg_subdir=/apks cfg_dev=hda1:vfat modloop=/kernel/generic/modloop.cmg console=ttyS0,115200
 EOF

Finally, we make the CF bootable

 syslinux $FLASHDEVICE
 umount alpine


Insert the flash card, and boot:

 Linux 2.6.23-hardened-r7 #3 Thu Apr 24 09:11:33 UTC 2008 i586 unknown

 # cat /proc/cpuinfo
 processor       : 0
 vendor_id       : AuthenticAMD
 cpu family      : 5
 model           : 10
 model name      : Geode(TM) Integrated Processor by AMD PCS
 stepping        : 2
 cpu MHz         : 498.049
 cache size      : 128 KB
 fdiv_bug        : no
 hlt_bug         : no
 f00f_bug        : no
 coma_bug        : no
 fpu             : yes
 fpu_exception   : yes
 cpuid level     : 1
 wp              : yes
 flags           : fpu de pse tsc msr cx8 pge cmov clflush mmx mmxext 3dnowext  3dnow
 bogomips        : 997.58
 clflush size    : 32