[U-Boot-Users] Download of kernel Image through Serial Line.

[John W. Linville]

Marius Groeger wrote:
 > On Wed, 29 Jan 2003 Christophe.LINDHEIMER at fr.thalesgroup.com wrote:

 >>- If I eventually manage to launch Linux, is it possible to have NFS
 >>over serial line ?
 >
 > Well, not as a root file system. You can boot into a small RAM disk
 > and set up a ppp link, though.

Actually, it is possible to mount the root FS via NFS over PPP.  We have 
done so for development purposes on some of our systems with no ethernet 
service ports.  The performance is limited, but once a binary (and it's 
associated libraries) are cached into memory, the system is reasonably 
responsive.

The trick is to use an initrd with a linuxrc file that sets-up the PPP 
link.  The "root=" command line argument should be "/dev/nfs" and either 
an "ip=" or "nfsroot=" line should be used.  I can be more specific if 
someone wants more information.

John

-- 
John W. Linville
LVL7 Systems, Inc.