PCG-C1VE install floppies for Debian woody

First some screenshots.

Update: The install floppies won't work with the repositories nowadays because they're based on Debian woody, but the Debian archives contain all the files you'll need.

Note: I've created a Howto from what I've learned here about creating custom Debian boot floppies. This procedure should work for any other strange hardware, too.

rescue disk

I've replaced the 2.4.18-bf kernel with a patched kernel 2.4.16.
It contains support for booting off a USB floppy drive and - much less important - for a full-width console.
Plus the kernel is compiled with CONFIG_MCRUSOE which should optimize the kernel binary somehow. On top of that it's lacking tons of support for hardware that'll never appear in a C1V* (e.g. CONFIG_SERIAL and CONFIG_PARPORT).
After the usb-storage driver gets initialized the kernel reports some ugly usb-storage messages which can safely be ignored.
The rest of the drivers remain as modules on the driver disks until the day I change my mind.

The patches for booting off usb-storage devices are here (super.c) and here (rd.c).

Note: The official Sony Vaio floppy drive (PCGA-UFD5) appears to be a Y-E DATA product. I guess it's possible to use any similar drive of the same brandmark to boot the Vaio as well (update: this has been confirmed).

• rescue.bin

The original root image does some unnecessary usbkbd insmodding which we just skip here.
I also removed a couple of insmod commands in rcS which prevents confusing error messages.
I've hacked the code of dbootstrap (the 'Debian Installer') to provide the following features:

• Lets you choose the USB-floppy drive (/dev/sda) as an installation device for the driver- and base-disks.
• It installs a lilo.conf with the required vga=0x301 appended.
• Added support for configuring a yenta socket CardBus using the PCMCIA configuration tool.
• 2.4.16 kernel optimized for the C1V* will be installed - including modules.

• root.bin

Finally the driver disks containing modules for the kernel above. Almost all stable PCMCIA and USB drivers along with PPP, IPSEC and WLAN support. OSS is only a module without drivers as I prefer using ALSA which works well here. A list of modules can be found here.

• drv14-1.bin
• drv14-2.bin

1. Don't forget to press Enter once the rescue floppy finished loading and the floppies are swapped.
2. Follow the installation procedure until you're promted to select a source for the base images. See this screenshot
3. Select cancel and make sure to load pcmcia_core, yenta_socket, ds (in that order) and the appropriate NIC driver e.g. via modconf.
4. Go to PCMCIA Configuation and follow the instructions.
5. Now set up the network connection either via the menu or on the second console using ifconfig, etc.
6. Finally go back to the menu option you left at 2) and select the network option.