speakup modified partimage final release info and read me

Mon Jul 15 01:02:14 EDT 2002

Hi all.

Well, it has arrived. The speakup modified partimage 0.6.1 distribution beta is here!

Unfortunately, do to what Tyler and I think is a busybox problem, this release does not contain serial console support. Tyler and I will continue to work on the problem, and serial console support will hopefuly be available in a future release.

I am including a copy of the read me file below. Any comments or suggestions are welcome. Members of this list may of course send them to 
greg at romuald.net.eu.org
in addition to the 
partimage at romuald.net.eu.org
address listed in the read me.

I would also appreciate it if people would take the time to run these boot floppies and boot cd through their paces. You may get them from:
http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/partimage/
. I plan to submit this to the partition image author on Thursday. This means that any suggestions sent to me after 18th July, 2002 00:00-500CDT will be included in future releases. 

I would like to thank everyone for their input, and interest.

Regards,
Greg Nowak

Welcome to the speakup modified distribution of partition image 0.6.1 maintained by Gregory Nowak <partimage at romuald.net.eu.org>.

readme version 0.1, 14 July, 2002.

CONTENTS
1.0. Introduction and preparation.
2.0. Booting using floppies.
3.0. Booting using the bootable CD.
4.0. Legal stuff.
5.0. That's it.

1.0. Partition image <http://www.partimage.org/> allows hard drive partitions to be backed up onto another medium (such as another hard drive partition). 

This distribution of partition image contains speakup <http://www.linux-speakup.org>, which is a screen reader for the GNU/Linux text console. 

New in this distribution of partition image is the ability to load kernel modules for 10/100 mbit ethernet (including USB) devices when booting with the boot/root floppies or via the bootable CD-ROM.

In order to use the bootable floppy disks, you will need to download the following files.

boot.img (The speakup modified partition image boot floppy.)
partimage-0.6.1-i386-rootdisk-2.raw (The partition image root floppy identical to the one available on the partition image web site).
netdrv.raw (The partition image floppy containing USB/network card kernel modules).

After you have downloaded two or all three of the above files (depending on if you need network support or not), you will have to use rawrite for DOS-like operating systems, or dd under unix variants to write these files to 1.44 Mb floppies. This process is covered in more detail in the official partition image documentation, so it will not be explained here. 

Once you have written the files you downloaded to floppies, you are ready to boot, and run partition image on systems which do not have GNU/Linux installed. 
Note: if you intend to use partition image on a machine(s) already running a distribution of GNU/Linux, you should go to the partition image web site, and use the server/client binaries available there instead.

If you would rather use the bootable partition image CD-ROM, you need to download the file "bootcd.iso", and use cdrecord under GNU/Linux to burn it onto a cdr/w.

2.0. Booting the partition image floppies is a fairly simple process. First, insert the boot disk you created earlier into whatever floppy drive your machine boots from, and turn on or reboot your machine. You should hear your floppy drive spin for a while, and the following will appear on your screen. 
     "
     Welcome to the speakup modified Partition Image bootable floppy. It allows you to save and
     restore your system, or any other partition without any floppy disk.

     Partition Image version 0.6.1 (stable)
     Please, report bug to authors.
     Please report bugs with this boot disk to: Gregory Nowak <partimage at romuald.net.eu.org>.

     kernel-2.4.18 for i386
     Speakup v-1.00 CVS: Fri Jul 5 20:51:57 CDT 2002

     Supported file systems:
     reiserfs, ext2fs/ext3fs, fat16, fat32, ntfs, hpfs, jfs, xfs, 
     hfs, ufs (bsd FFS, Solaris FS)

     Web: http://www.partimage.org/
     Speakup home page: http://www.linux-speakup.org/

     This prompt is just for entering extra parameters.  If you don't need to enter
     any parameters, hit ENTER to continue.

     For example, you can type "linux root=/dev/hda1" if your boot manager (LILO,
     grub) is not installed, in order to start your Linux system, if your root
     partition is /dev/hda1

     To select your speech synthesizer, type: "linux speakup_synth=xxx", where "xxx" is the speakup designation for your synthesizer.
     The default synthesizer selection is none.

"

This is the only part of the boot process which will not be spoken. Select your synthesizer as directed above, and hit enter to continue booting.
Note: A list of synthesizers currently supported, and their 3-6 letter designations can be found on the speakup web site.

The floppy should begin to spin once more, and after a while your synthesizer should start speaking the boot messages. I will assume here that you are familiar with speakup and its review commands, so they will not be described. Eventually, you will be asked to insert the root disk, and hit enter. Go ahead and do so. You will be informed that the compressed ramdisk image has been found at block 0, and your floppy drive will spin for a bit more. 

You will then see a welcome message, which you should read carefully. Press enter after you have done so to activate the console.

You should now be at a shell prompt with "/" as your current directory. If you do not require network connectivity, you may follow the instructions given in the welcome message discussed above, and run the partition image client or server programs. 

If you do require network connectivity, insert the third floppy disk with the network modules, and type the following (assuming that your 1.44 Mb floppy drive is /dev/fd0). 

"mount /dev/fd0 -rt minix /floppy"

If you do not understand what "/dev/fd0" means, and are used to thinking of your floppy drive as "a:", then I suggest that you read the "From DOS/Windows to Linux HOWTO", available from <http://www.linuxdoc.org/>.
Next, switch to the /floppy directory by typing "cd floppy". Now, run the netdrv script to unpack the network drivers by typing "./netdrv". You will be asked to wait, and your floppy drive will spin. Next, you will be informed that the network drivers have been unpacked successfully. If you got error message(s) after the wait message, and before the success message, then something went wrong while the network modules were being unpacked. 

Assuming that all went well, you may type "cd /"
and
"umount floppy", to unmount the floppy disk, and remove it from your floppy drive. You may now modprobe for your usb/network hardware. 

After your hardware has been detected, you may use "ifconfig" and "route" as instructed in the welcome message described earlier. After your network interface has been configured, you may run partition image as directed in the welcome message.

3.0. Booting from the bootable CD-ROM drive is similar to booting from floppy disks. I will assume that you have a recent bios capable of booting via the CD-ROM drive, and that you have enabled your machine's bios to boot from the CD-ROM drive. 

Insert the bootable CD-ROM you created in section 1.0 into your CD-ROM drive, and turn on or reboot your machine. You should hear the CD-ROM drive spin for a few seconds, and the following will appear on your screen. 
     "
     Welcome to the speakup modified Partition Image bootable CD-Rom. It allows you to save and
     restore your system, or any other partition without any floppy disk.

     Partition Image version 0.6.1 (stable)
     Please, report bug to authors.
     Please report bugs with this boot disk to: Gregory Nowak <partimage at romuald.net.eu.org>.

     kernel-2.4.18 for i386
     Speakup v-1.00 CVS: Fri Jul 5 20:51:57 CDT 2002

     Supported file systems:
     reiserfs, ext2fs/ext3fs, fat16, fat32, ntfs, hpfs, jfs, xfs, 
     hfs, ufs (bsd FFS, Solaris FS)

     Web: http://www.partimage.org/
     Speakup home page: http://www.linux-speakup.org/

     This prompt is just for entering extra parameters.  If you don't need to enter
     any parameters, hit ENTER to continue.

     For example, you can type "linux root=/dev/hda1" if your boot manager (LILO,
     grub) is not installed, in order to start your Linux system, if your root
     partition is /dev/hda1

     To select your speech synthesizer, type: "linux speakup_synth=xxx", where "xxx" is the speakup designation for your synthesizer.
     The default synthesizer selection is none.

"

This is the only part of the boot process which will not be spoken. Select your synthesizer as directed above, and hit enter to continue booting.
Note: A list of synthesizers currently supported, and their 3-6 letter designations can be found on the speakup web site.

The CD should begin to spin once more, and after a while your synthesizer should start speaking the boot messages. I will assume here that you are familiar with speakup and its review commands, so they will not be described. 

You will then see a welcome message, which you should read carefully. Press enter after you have done so to activate the console.

You should now be at a shell prompt with "/" as your current directory. If you do not require network connectivity, you may follow the instructions given in the welcome message discussed above, and run the partition image client or server programs. 

If you do require network connectivity, type the following to mount the CD-ROM (assuming your CD-ROM drive is "/dev/hdc".

"mount /dev/hdc -rt iso9660 /cdrom"

Next, switch to the /cdrom directory by typing "cd cdrom". Now, run the netdrv script to unpack the network drivers by typing "./netdrv". You will be asked to wait. Next, you will be informed that the network drivers have been unpacked successfully. If you got error message(s) after the wait message, and before the success message, then something went wrong while the network modules were being unpacked. 

Assuming that all went well, you may type "cd /"
and
"umount cdrom", to unmount the CD-ROM. You may now modprobe for your usb/network hardware. 

After your hardware has been detected, you may use "ifconfig" and "route" as instructed in the welcome message described earlier. After your network interface has been configured, you may run partition image as directed in the welcome message.

4.0. This document is copyright 2002 by Gregory Nowak under the terms of the gnu general public license version 2, or any later version. I ask only to be notified of any changes made to this document, and to be given proper credit if any part of this document is cited.

5.0. I hope that you have found this document helpful in booting and running the speakup modified distribution of partition image. If you have any corrections or additions to this document, please feel free to send them to me at <partimage at romuald.net.eu.org>. If you find any bugs or problems with the speakup boot floppies, CD-ROM, or the network drivers, please e-mail me describing the problem in as much detail as possible. Problems with speakup, or partition image should be directed to their respective authors.