Wakepup2 Aug 2008 - floppy image for booting from USB

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Crash
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Wakepup2 Aug 2008 - floppy image for booting from USB

#1 Post by Crash »

Attached is a new Wakepup2 floppy image, August 2008. It incorporates some additional functions and bug fixes. Included on the image is a readme.txt and pcm_read.txt file that describes the changes and additions.

Thanks to all who offered suggestions and participated in testing.

/// Edited Sept. 30

Note: The latest version of Wakepup2 is dated Sept. 27 and is posted at this address:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 327#235327

I recommend the Sept.27 version and welcome comments on its accuracy and effectiveness.

///

a3ac6257050ed79cdfba51aff01f0e5b Wakepup2.img
Last edited by Crash on Wed 01 Oct 2008, 02:31, edited 2 times in total.

otropogo

Re: Wakepup2 Aug 2008

#2 Post by otropogo »

Crash wrote:Attached is a new Wakepup2 floppy image, August 2008. It incorporates some additional functions and bug fixes. Included on the image is a readme.txt and pcm_read.txt file that describes the changes and additions.

Thanks to all who offered suggestions and participated in testing.

a3ac6257050ed79cdfba51aff01f0e5b Wakepup2.img
Got it Crash. Will try to test it before the weekend's over.

BTW - have you had a look at the following thread lately?

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=32382

There's an encouraging report of successful booting through pcmcia (if I understand the post correctly) using Puppy 2.14 R(evisted) version 1.01.

Maybe the solution to our pcmcia boot problem is there? Or have you already incorporated it in the new Wakepup2?

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big pc man
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My floppy boot experiences

#3 Post by big pc man »

About a year ago I started my quest to install puppy linux on an old laptop. The laptop could only boot from a floppy or hard disk. The HD IDE interface broke so that left me with a diskless laptop. OK, that's not so bad since I still could use a usb flash drive and boot from the floppy drive. However, the floppy drive is a usb external floppy drive. Here is where the trouble starts. As far as I can tell all the boot loaders I have tried fail for one of two reasons including the new one in this thread:
1. The boot loader detects there is a usb driver for the floppy drive already present so it won't load another one. The trouble is the bios floppy usb driver is a minimal driver and does not support anything else.

2. The boot loader loads a new usb driver that takes control of all devices and then can no longer access the floppy drive.

It took a long time to figure out the answer. As it turns out the only way around this problem that I have been able to find is to use a driver called ramfd.sys which loads the floppy image into memory eliminating any further need for the floppy drive during the boot process. This driver and two others were provided by mhairu (from Panasonic I think). The two others are USBASPI.SYS and DI1000DD.SYS. These three drivers have allowed me to finally boot and run puppy from a usb flash drive.

Code: Select all

Here's my config.sys
DEVICE=HIMEM.exe
FILES=30
BUFFERS=20
device=RAMFD.SYS
device=USBASPI.SYS  /R /v
device=Di1000dd.SYS
LASTDRIVE=Z

Code: Select all

Here's my autoexec.bat
cls
echo.
echo Checking any USB drive for marker file USBFLASH...
for %%x in ( C D E F ) do if exist %%x:\%usrinput%usbflash set drv=%%x:\%usrinput%
if "%drv%"=="" goto failed
:load
LINLD.COM image=%drv%vmlinuz initrd=%drv%initrd.gz cl=@linld\puppy.lin
goto end
:failed
type FAILMSG.TXT
:end
As you can see I have simplified the boot process down as much as I could.

I created the usb flash boot drive by using isobuster to transfer the live boot cd files over to the usb drive (FAT32). I then copied from the floppy disk the empty flashusb file over to the usb drive to "activate" it. Wow this has been quite an adventure!

otropogo

Re: My floppy boot experiences

#4 Post by otropogo »

big pc man wrote:.....As it turns out the only way around this problem that I have been able to find is to use a driver called ramfd.sys which loads the floppy image into memory eliminating any further need for the floppy drive during the boot process. This driver and two others were provided by mhairu (from Panasonic I think). ....
Jeesh! I'm green with envy. Not only have you got your laptop booting from USB, but you managed to get support from Panasonic!

Any chance I could get mhairu's e-mail address from you? I tried on and off for more than a year to get Panasonic's help in getting my CF-25Toughbook's cardbus port going (which would then allow me to use a pcmcia_USB adapter), but all I ever get from them (after sitting on my e-mails or losing them for months) is "it should work".

cthisbear
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#5 Post by cthisbear »

s USBASPI.SYS merely maps USB devices to an ASPI device, additional " " " driver is needed to map the ASPI mass storage to a DOS drive letter. The famous "Motto Hairu" driver includes this important piece, and can be downloaded from:
http://www.driver.novac.co.jp/driver/hd ... 2u_dos.zip

[Note: If this link doesn't work, start at http://www.driver.novac.co.jp/driver/hd ... u_drv.html]

UnZip the file to get these files (the latter has an english translation readme file)

DI1000DD.SYS v2.00 from Novac, ASPI Mass Storage Device Driver {reportedly drive needs to be ATA66 or faster) "

http://www.computing.net/answers/dos/us ... 14719.html

* usb_firewire storage dos driver
* USB DOS driver - USBASPI.SYS 2.xx
* USB storage in DOS - USBASPI.SYS
* Accessing USB storage in DOS
* Accessing USB storage in DOS



* Follow up #10959 (USB driver)
* USB 2.0 drivers for DOS
* USB driver for DOS = USBASPI.SYS
* USB mass storage driver for DOS
* USBASPI.SYS - a USB driver for DOS

Chris

http://www.computing.net/answers/dos/us ... 15568.html
Attachments
hd352u_win.zip
Motto Hairu" driver 2
(58.05 KiB) Downloaded 797 times
hd352u_dos.zip
Motto Hairu" driver
(26.37 KiB) Downloaded 832 times

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Crash
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Location: Melbourne, FL

#6 Post by Crash »

Note for those who like to roll your own that Di1000dd.SYS works on some computers, not on others. The alternative is ASPIDISK.SYS.

Di1000dd.SYS can also be gotten from the original boot2pup disk.

Also, most of the later Puppy boot disks use version 2.20 of USBASPI.SYS, which may not work for all computers. A previous version, 2.06, was included in the original boot2pup disk, and may work if the version 2.20 gives you problems.

big pc man: The RAMFD.SYS program sounds pretty cool. Nice solution.

/// Edited Aug 24

The first link that came up when I did a Google on "RAMFD.SYS" is a good one:

http://www.computing.net/answers/dos/us ... 13288.html

It talks a lot about USBASPI.SYS as well as RAMFD.SYS. It is as much information as you can get in one place, short of reading it in Japanese at the Panasonic web site.

///

otropogo

#7 Post by otropogo »

@Crash

If you have time and inclination, there's some possibly useful information brewing at this new thread:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 180#228180

where a potential new user is trying to install Puppy via pcmcia CDROM..

I've suggested in rough outline how he can do it without the CD drive, but I'm sure he'd be better off with you at the helm.

I believe he has XP installed, so it should be fairly easy to do a frugal.

The great part is that we now have two pcmcia testers, and I'd hate to lose one because he can't get Puppy installed.

If I understood his post correctly, he's also managed to cobble together a boot floppy that allowed him to access the pcmcia drive under DOS to install XP. Maybe that would be helpful in the redesign of Wakepup?

John Doe
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Location: Michigan, US

#8 Post by John Doe »

please consider replacing the attached files in the image.

config.sys

1-menu entry text for 5,6 and 8 were misleading (fixed).

2-options 8 and 0 didn't assign letters to the CD drives (fixed).

3-option 1 was loading both sets of usb drivers and caused a conflict when ASPIDISK.SYS was called (on the machine I'm working on) (fixed). I eliminated one. Picked USBASPI.SYS as default because it seems to support hubs (see *note).

*note: I currently believe hubs don't work with the iomega drivers due to 'e' not loading. it's commented out as it give me shit when I call it. perhaps it's corrupt but I can't find a copy of it to verify.

4-Due to change #3 option 1 and option 2 were exactly the same. So I renamed option 2 and called alternate drivers for USB and IDE CD drives.

5-options 5 and 6 didn't call ASPIDISK.SYS so no letters where getting asigned to mass storage when they were selected only CD drives (fixed).

6-options 3 and 4 are more clear now and call only a tiny set of drivers. more testing required.

TODOS.BAT

1-this is a new file called when option 8 or option 0 are selected from config.sys so that a drive letter can be assigned to CD(s) and a nice little message can be displayed.

AUTOEXEC.BAT

1-Added an option for nosmp under the custom option. It might be needed on some older machines with the new kernel smp configuration.

2-Due to the new media selection ability, added some misc messages when drives are being scanned to indicate to the user if a save file is found. Gives them some indication of successes while they wait anxiously.

3-Smiled with glee when I was given the option to select from different media (no fix required).

###

To Do:

1-PCMCIA: it's time. It's most of what we don't have in this area. We need usb and cd going off PCMCIA via floppy boots ASAP.
2-ZIP: does it even work? Anyone?
3-options 3 and 4 in config.sys need tested. Anyone have this type of HW around?
4-SharkDrives: I had one of these once. Anyone have the DOS drivers around?

###

inquiry1:

Currently the image leaves about 5K of usable space on the disk. Perhaps unzip.exe (50K) should be removed and a decent text editor added? Although unzip could be a handy app, I would wager that a text editor would be the more valuable DOS app to someone stranded with just a wakepup floppy and some type of boot error.

inquiry2:

Regarding booting from a PCMCIA CD, "What would one even pass to init to achieve something like that?". We've got pfix=usbcard for those, but what for CDs?
Attachments
WP_files.tar.gz
(5.25 KiB) Downloaded 749 times

otropogo

#9 Post by otropogo »

Without having the Wakepup menus in front of my, I find it hard to respond to the questions below, but will give it a shot:

John Doe wrote: To Do:

1-PCMCIA: it's time. It's most of what we don't have in this area. We need usb and cd going off PCMCIA via floppy boots ASAP.

2-ZIP: does it even work? Anyone?
If you mean bootup support for Parallel ZIP drive, - NO, and after testing many older Wakepups, I've found no evidence that this function ever worked

But the ZIP part is a red herring. The problem is with the parallel port support in Puppy

Can't remember what 3 and 4 are about, but if you're talking about the Backpack parallel port boot option - same story as the PP ZIP

John Doe wrote: ###

[pe of boot error.

inquiry2:

Regarding booting from a PCMCIA CD, "What would one even pass to init to achieve something like that?". We've got pfix=usbcard for those, but what for CDs?
I don't know the answer, but I know that Freedos is able to read the name of the sfs file off the CD, and Wakepup is able to report that it "can't find it Pupxxx.sfs"', if that helps.

Similarly, The Guest.exe on Wakepup locates the PP ZIP drive, identifies it as a ZIP100, designates it Drive W:, and reports that there's an installation of Puppy on the disk, after which Wakepup looks everywhere else for something to boot, and fails.

"PCMCIA CD", like PP "ZIP" and PP "Backpack", are confusing tags. Once the pcmcia issue is solved, drivers/modules for the controller are a separate issue.

The main value in enabling pcmcia_scsi, like pcmcia_usb, is that it will allow one to daisychain a variety of devices that couldn't otherwise be run off a laptop. This may make it worth finding/compiling such drivers for Puppy. At present there's a pcmcia_scsi module that works under kernel 2.6.18. But I don't know if it would run under later kernels. There doesn't seem to be any support for parallel port drives, ZIP or Backpack, in Puppy.

But there are other, non scsi CD controllers for pcmcia.And it hardly seems worth a major effort to get these working, since you can read and transfer information much more easily from the pcmcia slot using a simple Compact Flash pcmcia adapter that requires no modules at all and can hold several Gigabyte of data.

The value of enabling parallel boot support is that every older PC has a parallel port, and there are probably millions of parallel port ZIP drives and disks out there that are still in good working condition. And Zip100 disks are still sold.

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Crash
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#10 Post by Crash »

John Doe:

All your changes are for the better. I will edit the readme file to reflect them and re-post a new image. It takes me a while, maybe a week or two. In the mean time, perhaps others may want to offer more suggestions.

A few thoughts:

I notice you commented out the "aspiehci.sys" driver. That's probably just as well. I'm not sure if it is defective, but USBASPI.SYS should work instead of it anyway. I believe that I got aspiehci.sys to work on one single computer that wouldn't boot any other way, but that was long ago and my memory may be bad, not to mention whether the test setup was correct at the time. At any rate, I did a cursory search for aspiehci.sys at web sites that worked for me last year, but the links are now a dead end. So I don't have any good copies to compare it to. I see two different versions referenced, one 49K and one 52K, but that doesn't mean much.

One of the first things I do when I put Wakepup on a floppy is to add a text editor. A good candidate is the one that was on Wakepup 1.1. Between edit.exe and edit.hlp, it is about 90K. I usually get rid of the NTFS directory to make room for it, but that is a whole story in itself. Between getting rid of that and getting rid of aspiehci.sys, there would be enough room.

"Unzip.exe" is used to unzip the aspi.zip SCSI drivers to the RAM DISK, so it needs to stay if the extensive SCSI support is to be continued. I checked out the size of the SCSI archive, and it wouldn't fit otherwise.

At this point Wakepup is getting pretty full, and we probably have to think about what to selectively get rid of before adding anything more. Even the readme files are starting to hog up space, although I like things like this to be self-documenting.

In my opinion, ZIP, Parallel Port, USB, PCMCIA, PATA, SATA, and SCSI should all be able to be supported, but additions will need to be made to the Kernel for that to happen. I think the more legacy drivers in the Kernel the better, but I am not the poor guy stuck with researching and adding them. It is easier for me to say than it would be to do.

In truth, Wakepup support should be driven by the direction that Puppy goes. And Puppy should go where the community wants it to go. I see that type of discussion happening elsewhere on the forum, so I'll just stay tuned.

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Crash
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Sept 2008 version

#11 Post by Crash »

Attached is a Wakepup2 floppy image incorporating the changes discussed above.

I made a slight change to TODOS.BAT, making option 9 skip the execution of SHSUCDX.

ed3984f9208a3c8d55b8cbecd0d673b2 Wakepup2.img
Last edited by Crash on Sat 13 Sep 2008, 20:05, edited 1 time in total.

zygo
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Location: UK

#12 Post by zygo »

Crash,

Thanks for updating wakepup.

Suggestion: support for SATA cd drives please. The previous version, booting from a USB floppy, doesn't seem to find the cd drive on my newer pc.

otropogo

Re: Sept 2008 version

#13 Post by otropogo »

Crash wrote:Attached is a Wakepup2 floppy image incorporating the changes discussed above. ...
Have just tested the new Wakepup2 floppy on my CF-25.

I had the following devices with bootable Puppy files attached:

1. Parallel Port Zip

2. pcmcia_scsi CD-ROM with LiveCD

3. parallel port CDROM (Backpack) with LiveCD

4. Compact Flash card in pcmcia slot

Since my machine has no USB port, I couldn't check that boot capability. But for the above I'm sorry to report that, instead of making progress, we're going backwards.

1. the parallel port zip performance is unchanged, aspi ppm drivers report "no adapter", guest.exe finds the drive and assigns letter "W:",
Puppy files are detected on W:\ and C:\, when W: is selected, the boot process continues, save files are presented for bootup, and when "0" or anything else is selected, the process grinds to a halt with the same old error message:
pup_400.sfs not found. Dropping out to initial-ramdisk console...
/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off
2. the worst regression is with the pcmcia_scsi. Previously Freedos loaded aspi4dos (IIRC) successfully and detected the pcmcia scsi host adapter, reported its name, scsi ID, LUN, and the process continued to the same point of failure as in the PP ZIP drive above.

Now, although I chose to load all drivers, none were installed, and no scsi devices were detected. So this aspect of the new Wakepup is a complete wipeout.

3. the parallel port Backpack performance is also absolutely zilch. I wonder whether the corrupted BPCD drivers got back into the image, because the drive isn't even recognized in Freedos now (IIRC, it was previously)

4. the Compact Flash card also went undetected, despite my choosing to load all available drivers and try all listed peripherals. Not really surprising, since the new Wakepup doesn't seem to be able to recognize pcmcia at all.

I had high hopes of this option, since we were previously able to read the CD on the pcmcia_scsi chain. And by substituting a pcmcia CF card adapter for the pcmcia_scsi host adapter, we eliminate the need to support the scsi controller. So this is the biggest disappointment of all.

After running all these tests, some of them several times, I booted from the hard drive with the CF card and the pcmcia_scsi drive attached to make sure that these devices were properly attached and working. Both the CF card and the LiveCD in the scsi drive mounted without problems in Puppy 3.01 Retro.

I couldn't run this test on the parallel port drives because Puppy 3.01 Retro doesn't support either of them (neither does Puppy 4.0).

That's all folks. I wish I hadn't overwritten my previous Wakepup2 floppy.

PS. it's also maddening to have to boot up Windows to write the floppy image because Puppy doesn't have Rawrite available.

John Doe
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Re: Sept 2008 version

#14 Post by John Doe »

otropogo wrote:PS. it's also maddening to have to boot up Windows to write the floppy image because Puppy doesn't have Rawrite available.
like this:

Code: Select all

dd if=wakepup2.img of=/dev/fd0
double check that the value of 'of' device is correct or you can wipe out an incorrect disk.

more to come latter. I've been working on some things. I think I can get you going better. the PPZip drive will take a custom initrd.gz (the drivers aren't in there) but it will be worth it to get the logic out of the way.

otropogo

Re: Sept 2008 version

#15 Post by otropogo »

John Doe wrote:
otropogo wrote:PS. it's also maddening to have to boot up Windows to write the floppy image because Puppy doesn't have Rawrite available.
like this:

Code: Select all

dd if=wakepup2.img of=/dev/fd0
double check that the value of 'of' device is correct or you can wipe out an incorrect disk.
Got to love that command line... What's needed is a command lookup app in the gui, so that when you type in "rawrite" or ".img", it gives you the command and its syntax, preferably in some human language.

Text doesn't take up a lot of space. I think even Puppy could afford the room for something like that.
John Doe wrote:.. the PPZip drive will take a custom initrd.gz (the drivers aren't in there) but it will be worth it to get the logic out of the way.
Oh, oh, I'm getting sucked in again. What about the pcmcia problem? Marching backwards is bad for troop morale.

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Crash
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#16 Post by Crash »

otropogo wrote:the worst regression is with the pcmcia_scsi
One change I made on this version was to archive some of the large files that I didn't think were used. One of them was config.exe in the \driver\cardsoft directory. My tests didn't indicate that it was needed, but I don't have the hardware to test it fully either.

Does the "August 2008" version still work? If so, please re-name the config.exe file to something else on that version and re-run it. If it fails, then I was wrong. If that is the case, I will overwrite the "Sept 2008" image with an image that has that file put back.

otropogo

Re: Sept 2008 version

#17 Post by otropogo »

John Doe wrote:
otropogo wrote:PS. it's also maddening to have to boot up Windows to write the floppy image because Puppy doesn't have Rawrite available.
like this:

Code: Select all

dd if=wakepup2.img of=/dev/fd0
double check that the value of 'of' device is correct or you can wipe out an incorrect disk.
You forgot to mention that you'll also need to either go to the directory where the image file is located,

like this

Code: Select all

cd /mnt/hda3/AllPups/Wakepup2_08
or put the path of the directory into the command (even harder).

Anyway, since I had to reburn the August floppy img, I tried it your way. I had to go online to find your post, then enter the command and the path manually, which took several corrections, due to limited typing accuracy and forgetting about case sensitivity, and then, when it was all finally ready, Puppy failed to write the image (on a perfectly good floppy I had just used several times to boot and with an image file that had just passed the md5sum test) and gave me an input output error instead.

So now I get to do what I should have done in the first place - copy the img file to a flash card, take it to my Win98 machine, and write the image with Rawrite.

If I'd done that originally, it would have taken me a tenth of the time I spent getting less than nowhere with Puppy's command line. And I say "less than nowhere" advisedly, because now, if I'm lucky, I'll have to format the disk in Windows before writing the image. And if I'm not, the disk will be toast, and I'll have to find another floppy to write to....

otropogo

#18 Post by otropogo »

Crash wrote:
otropogo wrote:the worst regression is with the pcmcia_scsi
...
Does the "August 2008" version still work?.....

I'm afraid not. IIRC, I complained about this loss of pcmcia functionality some time ago, but you didn't respond, and then I got caught up in the parallel port testing and forgot about the pcmcia.

It must have happened while we were still posting in the "Bogus PP ZIP..." thread.

Here's the last reference I could find, from Jul 09, of Wakepup recognizing the pcmcia_scsi chain:

Crash :
otropogo,

Is this the path that you took using the new pcmcia.bat to attempt to boot to the SCSI CD?

First menu:
7. PCMCIA Devices (Experimental)

Next menu, "Select PCMCIA, Zip Parallel, or SCSI":
1. PCMCIA

Next menu, "Ready to load ASPI Host Adapter Drivers":
1. All


yes

Crash :
Next menu, "Ready to load Peripherals":
6. aspicd.sys /d:USB-CD


I've generally chosen 1. All at this menu, but will try 6. alone as you suggest .

And yes, after removing your "rem", I now get the same initial result as with the original pcmcia.bat:

ASPI CD-ROM Driver of DOS Version4.01...

Host Adapter 0, Target SCSI ID = 4 - LUN 0: SONY CD-RW CRX145S 1.0c CD-ROM driver installed: I host adapter(s), 1 target(s),

Then, after pressing "any key" twice, I see the CD-ROM's access light go on for several seconds, but all wakepup reports is :

"file found on idehd, drive C:\
But I know we got a bit beyond that, to the point of having Wakepup2 recognize the version of Puppy on the CD, exactly as in the PP ZIP report just now. And then we lost it all....

One step forward, and two steps backward.

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Crash
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#19 Post by Crash »

Quote wrote:Does the "August 2008" version still work?.....

I'm afraid not.
OK, we need to go even further back to get a baseline. With the "latest official Wakepup2 version", i.e. the one from Puppy 3.01, do you still get the message:
ASPI CD-ROM Driver of DOS Version4.01...

Host Adapter 0, Target SCSI ID = 4 - LUN 0: SONY CD-RW CRX145S 1.0c CD-ROM driver installed: I host adapter(s), 1 target(s),


Gotta start somewhere...

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8-bit
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#20 Post by 8-bit »

I had experimented with even accessing parallel port devices for install of puppy on an old laptop.
First, even though you might have the windows or dos drivers for the parallel port device installed and see the puppy files on the external device, you cannot stop there.
When control passes to the puppy kernel, that windows driver for the device is gone and if driver support for the device is not compiled into the kernel, Puppy no longer sees or is able to access the device.
I went through this when trying to install Deli Linux.
From windows, I could read the parallel port cdrom fine.
But driver support from Deli for it was not loaded so in effect the cdrom did not exist.
So... is there a way to load the drivers for the device immediately after the kernel loads?
Just my thoughts on this.

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