[TriLUG] making a custom RH7.2 network install disk

[Peter Long]

Hi all,

I hope someone on the list can help me out here. I have a old IBM PC
Server 330 with an old DAC960 based Mylex RAID controller that I am
trying to instal RH7.2 on. It happens to be a DAC960P which until 
11-Oct-2001 was not supported by the DAC960 block device driver that 
comes with the linux kernel. Consequently the version of the kernel 
that comes with the RH7.2 boot images (2.4.7-10BOOT) does not 
recognise the controler. The machine also does not have a CDROM or and
IDE harddrives so I am trying to do a network install using FTP.

So excited by the prospect of learning something I decided to make a
custom RH7.2 install disk by updating the kernel and modules that are
part of the bootnet.img floppy image. I compiled a standard 2.4.16
kernel that I got from www.kernel.org. I had a lot of trouble getting
the kernel small enough to fit on the floppy disk. In the process I
think I must have left out something that is needed by the install
program. Next I updated the initrd.img by adding the lanstreamer.o
(tokenring card) module to modules.cgz. I also removed everything else
from there except for fat.o and vfat.o. I figured they were needed to
access the floppy. All the other modules that were in modules.cgz were
just Ethernet drivers that I new I would not need and usb support which
I did not think I needed to do the install. The only modules I was not
sure about were the scsi modules. 

Anyway, I updated the image with the new 2.4.16 kernel and booted the
machine with it. It saw my DAC960 controler and spun up the drivers.
Everything was great. It even found my lanstreamer automatically.
Propably because I updated pcitable in initrd.img to list it. The
install program started up fine and I chose FTP install method. Typed in
the URL from the site that contained the install RPMS and it
successfully fetched netstg1.img from the site. Unfortunately that is
where is croaks. 

Here is the output on console 3:

* copied 6938624 bytes to /tmp/ramfs/netstg1.img
* loopfd is 14
* failed to mount loop: No such device

I assume this error occured when it tried mounting netstg1.img on
/dev/loop0

What am I missing here? Did I accidently leave something critical out of
the kernel? Did I delete to many modules from modules.cgz? 

I wish I had .config file that was used to build 2.4.7-10BOOT. I it
would take a lot of the guessing out of this experience.

Any advice would be appreciated. BTW: Even though after 5 days playing
with this I have yet to install RedHat, I must admit that I have not had
this much fun in ages.

Cheers
Peter Long