GeeXboX

I had previously gotten 0.98.5 to netboot, and now I am stuck getting 0.98.6 going using same scheme -- it seems i am ALMOST there

Presently, here is where I am stuck -- booting debug mode so i can see the messages I see something like

This is an approximate, the messages are pretty quick, and the machine shuts down pretty fast.

Any ideas would be appreciated. By the way I am using the ziso tree under my build directory -- is that what i want to use? If i burn the iso from the make, that seems to work fine.

In case anyone is interested, I wrote up an outline of how I got the net boot going using Fedora Core 3 as my server: http://thegeek.freeshell.org/computer/linux.html

using 0.98.6 iso generator, I got netboot working.
However, I had to make changes to the linux generator script, so the cleanup after ISO generating doesn't ruin the /iso folder.
without it, I ran into similar trouble as you did.

diff -Naur /root/geexbox-generator-0.98.6.i386/generator.sh /root/generator_nfs/generator.sh
--- /root/geexbox-generator-0.98.6.i386/generator.sh 2005-08-15 19:05:04.000000000 +0200
+++ /root/generator_nfs/generator.sh 2005-08-19 09:10:00.000000000 +0200
@@ -183,18 +183,18 @@
cp $GEEXBOX_DIR/lirc/lircd_$REMOTE.conf $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/etc/lircd.conf
[ -n "$W32CODECS" ] && ln -s $W32CODECS_DIR/* $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/codecs/
mkzftree $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX $TMPDIR/ziso/GEEXBOX
-rm -f $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/usr/share/mplayer/help_$LANG.txt
-rm -f $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/etc/mplayer/menu_$LANG.conf
-rm -f $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/etc/lang.conf
-rm -f $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/etc/lang
-rm -f $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/etc/subfont
-rm -f $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/etc/theme.conf
-rm -rf $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/usr/share/iconv/*
-rm -rf $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/usr/share/fonts/*
-rm -f $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/usr/share/mplayer/background.avi
-rm -f $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/usr/share/mplayer/background-audio.avi
-rm -f $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/usr/share/grub-splash.xpm.gz
-rm -f $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/etc/lirc*
+#rm -f $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/usr/share/mplayer/help_$LANG.txt
+#rm -f $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/etc/mplayer/menu_$LANG.conf
+#rm -f $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/etc/lang.conf
+#rm -f $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/etc/lang
+#rm -f $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/etc/subfont
+#rm -f $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/etc/theme.conf
+#rm -rf $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/usr/share/iconv/*
+#rm -rf $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/usr/share/fonts/*
+#rm -f $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/usr/share/mplayer/background.avi
+#rm -f $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/usr/share/mplayer/background-audio.avi
+#rm -f $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/usr/share/grub-splash.xpm.gz
+#rm -f $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/etc/lirc*

cp -rf $TMPDIR/iso/GEEXBOX/boot/* $TMPDIR/ziso/GEEXBOX/boot
[ -f $GEEXBOX_DIR/themes/$THEME/bootsplash.dat ] && cat $GEEXBOX_DIR/themes/$THEME/bootsplash.dat >> $TMPDIR/ziso/GEEXBOX/boot/initrd.gz
@@ -229,11 +229,11 @@
-z -f -D -r -J -sort $GEEXBOX_DIR/sort $MKISOFS_ARCH \
$TMPDIR/ziso > $OUTPUT

-if [ $TMPDIR = "." ]; then
- rm -rf $TMPDIR/ziso
-else
- rm -rf $TMPDIR
-fi
+#if [ $TMPDIR = "." ]; then
+# rm -rf $TMPDIR/ziso
+#else
+# rm -rf $TMPDIR
+#fi

echo ""
echo "**** Your customized GeeXboX iso is ready ****"

Thanks for the generator tips.

I did get it going from the build tree by using the stuff under build.i386/iso/GEEXBOX -- the only thing extra i had to do was copy over the build.i386/ziso/GEEXBOX/boot.

(there is no boot directory under iso)

It's kindof funny that when it boots, the first part of the boot seems to zoom along at a good clip. But the rest of it, i guess this is where it's coming from NFS, on mine seems to stutter badly, and can take up to another minute to complete the boot.
I'm running over a wireless link so I suspect that but what's weird is that once it boots up i can play video and music just fine over the same link.

if you build from source, just do:

and you will get a ready for use geexbox in geexbox.pxe/ directory.

Ah! you are right, of course.
I was going to say i didn't know about the make pxe option but since I previously had a directory under 0.98.5 called geexbox-pxe, I must have known about it at one time, and forgot! Thanks.

In case anybody is interested, this stuttering was indeed due to my wireless link. I found a long enough ethernet cable, and with the wireless eliminated Geexbox boots up quickly, as expected.
With the wireless, the second-stage boot can take anywhere up to 5 minutes (!) Fiddling around with the antennas seems to help but still takes at best 2 minutes.

Some protocols are more "error-proof" than others and can better handle packet loss on your wireless link.

AFAIK NFS uses UDP which has no error correction mechanism built in.
It's up to software time-outs to ask for re-transmit.
Samba otoh uses tcp connections with build in error control/retransmit stuff.