How to boot wdlxtv directly from a flash device or hdd

[b-rad.cc]

Theres a little known feature thats in wdlxtv-live&g2 that I think more people should be enjoying, especially since I just patched a little bug so it works again

There is a built in ability to pivot and boot a firmware directly off a flash device or fast hard drive. This is not root.bin I'm talking about, this is all the files directly on your device. The device you use must be formatted in either ext2 or ext3, I suggest ext3 since the journal will come into use occasionally.

In order to see what I'm talking about:

Option 1
grab the latest ext3-boot-live root.bin, save it to the device you want to play with, and open your closest shell. Example below is done on the wdtv-live itself.

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cd /tmp/media/usb/ext3A
mkdir ext3-boot
mount -o loop root.bin ext3-boot
mkdir .rootFS
rsync -avHS ext3-boot/ .rootFS
umount ext3-boot
rm root.bin
sync && sync && sync && reboot

Now when this boots you should be greeted with ext3-boot, without root.bin.

Notes:
* Your device MUST come alive fast to work
* Any device that is already known to work with ext3-boot-live root.bin will work with .rootFS
* Only one external 3.5 hdd I've tried out of ~10 will boot .rootFS / root.bin, the rest will not because they are too slow
* All 5 of my various 2.5" 'portable' external hdd's successfully boot root.bin / .rootFS

Option 2
With subversion you can run bleeding edge if you have an ext3 device:

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cd /tmp/media/usb/ext3A
mkdir .rootFS
svn co --username guest --password guest https://svn.wdlxtv.com/svn/wdlxtv-live/trunk .rootFS
chmod 4755 .rootFS/usr/bin/sudo
chmod 440 .rootFS/etc/sudoers
chmod 440 .rootFS/etc/sudoers.d/README
chmod 700 .rootFS/root/.ssh
sync && sync && sync && sync

If you're a dev and want to try your hand at patching, then you can make svn diff's to show modifications.

[awx]

@brad:
is this functionality supported by the stock firmware as well or do i have to flash wdlxtv first?
btw: the .rootFS folder will be created by the svn command
regards
awx

[awx]

hmm...there must be something wrong. either your howto our my brain
i tried it with three different devices, but had NO success with booting .rootFS
how i understand it:

1. umount the device if it was mounted
2. format the device with i.e. mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1
3. mount the device with i.e. mount /dev/sdb1 /tmp/mountpoint_that_exists
4. change into that directory i.e. cd /tmp/mountpoint_that_exists
5. grab the svn stuff with "svn export https://svn.wdlxtv.com/svn/wdlxtv-live/trunk .rootFS"
6. check the created folder .rootFS
7. sync, unmount and reboot

and the result is - nothing! just the wd-logo for hours
i tried two (fast) usb sticks and one 2.5" usb 160GB harddisk
all work perfectly with root.bin
can you see where i'm wrong?
greetz
awx

EDIT: got it to work! flashed version 0.4.2.0

[spidi]

works perfect,
but is there a possibility to update directly.
or can i only update when i unplug the harddisk and mount it later?

rtorrent works create by the way!!!

Greets, spidi

[b-rad.cc]

Code: Select all

cd /
svn update

[player_sct]

heh i'ts work thx b-rad for this now i have in /root much more space than 8-10 mb

[dopedangel]

I was wondering will this method solve my problem
Whenever I forget to turn of my external hard disk when I reboot it is selected instead of my 2gb flash drive as sda1.
or is their another way to force wdtv to select a particular drive to load root.bin

[b-rad.cc]

No theres not and there will never be That'd just add excess time to the boot cycle and you can swap usb slots for your devices and figure out where /dev/sda1 is--it never changes

[dopedangel]

I tried using different slots but didn't matter if the drive was in the back slot or side slot it became sda1 instead of my flash drive.
Not really important now that I am using msheet ext plugin so don't need to reboot alot.
But to make it clear sda1 is decided by the usb slot and has nothing to do with what kind of harddrive it is?

[nerve]

Hi,
i followed all the instructions, but it continues to boot from flash instead from .rootFS....
Could it be because i use an usb disk with 2 different partitions? My ext3 partition is recognized as SDA5..


Thank you.

Ciao,
Nerve