Topic: Install SME from USB pen?

[tariqf]

I think this would be brilliant if I could some how burn the ISO onto my USB pen.

This way I can order servers without CDROMS and subsequently have 1 hard disk on each IDE controller with RAID1 and reap the speed rewards for not having a CDROM as slave on one controller!

Does anyone know how I can do this?

[MSmith]

When I'm building a software RAID-1 SME box I specify the hardware without a CD-ROM then just hook one up temporarily, thus gaining the controller advantages you describe.  Your idea is an interesting one, though, and perhaps someone smarter than I will make it happen.

[drywalldude]

This should work if the motherboard supports booting to a usb device all you should have to do is copy the install disk to the pen, should be the same as botting to a usb cd drive

[tariqf]

So how would I go about copying the files to the usb pen from the sme cdrom? What fielsystem would I format the usb as etc?

[MSmith]

Format as FAT32, then just copy all the files however works for you.  Then try it on a motherboard that will boot from USB and when you get it working, let everybody know with a HOWTO.

[tariqf]

Ok I will be trying this this week and will post my results soon.....

[arne]

Hello !

I have not done these things, using a usb stick, but I am rather courious about how it can work.

One thing I have looked into is how to alter an existing bootable Linux iso. I found one program that can open the iso image, reedit it and store the new changes.  http://www.ezbsystems.com/ultraiso/

Reediting a Linx bootable image using ultraiso have been tried, and that worked out pretty well.

When it comes to making a boot from the usb, distribution  ... well I have not tried, but I wonder about if there will not ne any issues with boot sectors and things like that .. I don't know.

Possibly some of this info can be used:
http://rz-obrian.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de/knoppix-usb/

Just another idea .. if a usb stick eventuelly should give problems, would it then be more easy to make a boot from a usb harddisk with the image on ?

And what about just an external USB CD ROM ?

Just some ideas ..

Please leave a message when you have obtained some experiences, even though it shoild not work at the first try ..

Being able to boot and install from an usb device sounds rather interresting, and of cource an usb stick would be the ultimate alternative ..

Best reg Arne.

[arne]

One other Link with some interesting info:
http://www.faqts.com/knowledge_base/view.phtml/aid/32487/fid/1148

[arne]

I tried to fill up the sme installation files on a 512 MB USB stick and then boot from it. File system as delivered with the memoty stick, and I believe this is fat32.

Well it did not boot, and I had not expected it to boot either. Reason: When you are booting from a CD, from a HD or from a floppy, there is a first "main boot record" that is responsible to start it all, load operating system image and so on.

I then tried to download the dam small USB boot Linux ad to copy that over to my memory stick as well.

Actually it did not work either, and I believe the reason is the same, .. The usb stick file system does have to be modified in the one way or the other, so there will be a basic boot function equivalent to a floppy/CD/HD main boot record.

How to do that .. don't know yet, but I guess this can be solved in the one way or the other, and also I would expect that this problem will be common for making Linux "embeded system". I believe that the problem would/should be the same using some other electronic memory card. The issue about the missing MBR will allways be there ..

tariqf -> Please inform if things works if they does not work - quite an interesting thing this ..

Best reg Arne

[arne]

Think this looks interesting because it contains some info about how to build up data structures on the memory stick, to give it "a bootable structure". Have not testet yet:

http://d-i.pascal.at/

By the way .. if it should be right that the build up and structure of the "data structures" on the usb stick is a main issue, then it should eventually be possible to solve the same practical problem by just connecting a external usb cd rom ??? (As a replacement for the memory stick. The mbr should be there and the file structure should be the right one. Don't know if there still could be problems (when the sme linux image takes over from the boot image))

Best reg Arne.

[arne]

Hupe I just don't fill up your discussion with "junk" but I think this is a rather promising link about the more genreal question: "How to get a PC to boot from a usb stick"

http://arstechnica.com/columns/linux/linux-20041109.ars

[arne]

Did perform the last procedure on two different usb sticks. (Brand SanDisk and Apacher).

None of them did boot. Both hanged in the middle of the boot sequence like this L.. (Like a hd missing it's mbr and that is not able to load the Lilo boot loader.)

Looks like booting from a usb stick is not the most easy thing you can do ?!

[arne]

Try to "repair":
http://slax.linux-live.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3880

[arne]

Well after one night and 12 hours of work (and one angry wife) I were still not able to make the PC to boot from a usb stick using any of the methods above.

Tested with 3 different usb sticks.

I got the "feeling" that the problem might be related to the hardware, a Shuttle cube PC. Don't know.

By the way I notice that minor details can have influence on "how things does not work". It's for instance closer to make a boot if support for usb keyboard is enabled. Removing the power cable between rebbots can also have influence on "how it allmost reboots". (In the best case the Linux loader Lilo is hanging. In the worst case it is not detected at all.)

If anybody else should be able to make a PC to boot from a usb stick, the one way or the other, please leave a message !

It would be nice if it were just one simple detail I did not understand at all ..

Best reg Arne.

[drywalldude]

The following link to the manual has a section on installing to "flash memory" the process should be the equivelant by right know I don't have time to sift through it and see :

http://www.ipcop.org/1.4.0/en/install/install-en-1.4.0.html.zip

 

[arne]

Thanks a lot !

Using the instructions for the ipcop and downloading a program called physdiskwrite.exe I were finally able do download a flash image of ipcop and then make it bootable from a usb. (Well it did make the boot of the Linux kernel, but it crashed further on due to some hardware problem, but ok booting worked.)

Its looks like booting from usb is something that can be done, but it looks like something "not so easy" to be able to boot and install the sme server from a memory stick.

Anybody who have tried with just an external UDF CD ROM ?

[arne]

Excuse me, correction:

Anybody who have tried with just an external USB CD ROM ?

[arne]

This works. Not a sme installer but at least an usb boot installation that works .. possibly a step ahead ?

http://linitx.com/support/download.php

[drywalldude]

I have installed mandrake linux w/usb cd with some success. I know to make sure that "boot to usb device" being enabled in the bios is important in this, but I think more that it might be a kernel support issue. If all fails try using ver 7.03 of sme and see if you are sucsefull in booting all the way. Maybee not though it just dosen't seem that it should be that complicated of a thing to do..........so I guess before the weekend I will go and get a pen of my own so I can join the endever. Not that I really need this but it is a interesting project

I think 512meg should be good?????

[arne]

I am up and running with a Slax Linux (Live slackware) from a USB stick just now, so I am a bit more optimistic. The Slax from the USB stick runns really nice.

Yes I would be happy for some cooperation with "the sme install from the usb stick" project.

I think that the sme installer project can be done as well. I have never seen or even heard about a "install from the USB stick installation", but the prisiples for a "live from a USB stick" should work, I believe. (Some of it should be equal, it shall only do something else, install a distribution on a harddisk, not just "running live".)

By the way, for the Slax Linux installation I also use a 512 MB memory stick. Actually it is to big, so I will replace it with at 256 MB for this installation. Then the 512 MB should be the right one for the sme

Best reg Arne.

[tariqf]

Got a 512 meg usb 2 pen from ebuyer should arrive monday. Will begin to battle with getting this working then...

Can I just say it's great to have so many people inetested in getting this up and running. Lets hope we can achieve it and maybe get the USB installer image included as a download option.

[arne]

Yes, I hope we can make it. I first made an installation of the Slax Linux and were rather optimistic. I now try to make a USB boot for a firewall distribution, but this one is rather difficult ..

Hope we can make it for the sme installer, and from a theoretical point of wiew, it should be quite possible .. (??!!)

One of the really nice sides about the sme server is actually the user forum

Arne.

[arne]

Just to get started with something ..

Have found that Hewlet Packard has a utility that can make a usb bootable in dos (Fat16/Fat32):

http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hpcpqdt/us/download/20306.html

Have tested it. Worked pretty well. By the way I used a Windows Millenium startdisk to pull over the mbr and some basic system files.

No problem to make the usb pin dos bootable and to copy over the sme installation files to the usb pin.

I remember from the old days when we booted the PC from a floppy and then went into a directory dostools to make a manual boot of the cd when the pc couldn't autoboot from cd.

Question: When you have booted the usb pin using dos/boot, could it then be possible to navigate into the dosutility folder and from there "manually" initiate some further Linux boot or installation ??

Arne.

[arne]

Don't know if it could be an idea to try to do something with the loadlin.exe that is in the dosutil folder. Don't know ..

http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-mini/Loadlin+Win95-98-ME.html

[arne]

If yoy open the loadlin16.tgz file you will find some more interesting info.

One other question I'm thinking about .. is loadlin.exe (if this can be used) compatible with fat 32, or will it require fat16 .. don't know, has to be tried.

[arne]

Some other ideas different from the dos boot approach:


http://d-i.pascal.at/

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/archive/5/2004/10/4/244214

[arne]

After some reading and searcing around, I have now made 3 different Linux installations on 3 different USB sticks to see what can be used. These 3 distributions are: Slax, Floppyfw and Damnsmalllinux.

I had hoped that there should be one common and typical way to set up the booting and communication to the memory stick, but one can hardley say that, they are a bit different.

Possible the Damnsmalllinux installation has a "framework" that can be used for a sme installation USB stick.

Basically you will need 3 basic prinsipples I believe:
1. The USB stick must be recognised as a fat (not fat32) system disk.
2. You must run the Linux installation boot image.
3. You must be able to mount and read the file structure on the installation USB stick.

One idea: Could it be possible to just use an existing and working Damsmalllinux on a USB stick installation, and then just write this over and replacing the files with sme installation files ??

There is a boot kernel at the sme installation cd
\dosutils\autoboot\vmlinuz

Could it work to write over the damnsmalllinux kernel with the sme installation kernel ?

The damnsmalllinux installation using existing images were the mort easy one.

For the floppyfw installation I used a more "make it all from the bottom approach". I wrote down these notes:

MINI, MINI HOWTO:

1. Format the USB stick using fat file system. (Not fat 32 !)
2. Use the program syslinux.exe, run command syslinux.exe -m e: (Where e: is the drive letter for the USB stick.) http://syslinux.zytor.com/
3. Download the newest flash tar.bz2 from this link:
http://www.zelow.no/floppyfw/download/Development/
4. Extract the compressed file and copy the files over to the USB stick.
5. check if the config file is still missing om the flash image. If this is the case, copy it over from an earlier version. (Note the installation can not run or boot without a config file.)
6. Reboot your PC, set the Bios to boot from USB HD.
 7. You are up and running with a floppyfw from the USB stick !

Problem: I have used really a lot of workhours to do the 3 USB installations and I am a bit "out of time" with some other projects.

Do you have time/interesst to make to make som further testing/development of these ideas or other ideas arond this an leave the results here ?

I will try to come back an proceed on after a little while.

Arne

[arne]

By the way .. one thing more:

My old USB 1.1 and my new USB 2.0 Apacher Handy Steno stick works perfectly for USB booting purposes.

My SanDisk cruzer micro USB 2.0 stick can be rather tricky. (You will, some times have to pull out the power cable to reset the USB controller between reboots.)

Apacher Handy Steno USB 2.0 is, I think, a very good one for Linux booting !

Arne.

[arne]

I have now made a combined Damsmalllinux and "all the sme installation files" in a common 512 MB USB stick. I can boot it and get up Damnsmalllimux, and also I have access to all the sme instalatin "files" (images) on the USB stick.

I can now make a bot from the USB stick with the sme installation cd files on it via dos (using the HP tool) or via Linux using Damsmalllinux, so I can have access to all the "files" from dos or from Linux.

On the other hand I have not been able to find anything to "grip hold on" starting a installation prosess to the harddisk neither via dos or via Linux.

Anybody who got an idea ?

Seems like such a "install from an usb project" is a lot more difficult than a normal "boot the Linux from a USB stick" project.

Sending this msg from a Damsmalllinux on a USB stick with also the sme installation files on it.

Could it be that the sme installarion files is on a "wrong format". Does "images" give any reasonable sence ?

Arne.

[arne]

Ok, I have come a litle bit further on I think.

There is a program utility that are able to prepere filesystems for linux called syslinux:

http://syslinux.zytor.com/

There is also a program utility that is called winimage that is able to open up and pull out the contents of the images on the sme installation disk, so it comes over to en accessable form:

http://www.winimage.com/download.htm

I think it lookes like quite clear that it is technically possible to make an sme installation from a USB stick, but that it still will require some workhours to find out about "all the smaller details".

I think that it will be a major issue to set up the file "syslinux.cnf" the right way.

I hope that there is someone with a lot of knowlwdge about these things that cold give a helping hand.

One other major problem: Don't know the functions of the different images at the sme CD.

Anybody who knows ?

[arne]

Status:

Things does work. Have made an USB stick installer for one other Linux distribution, not the SME server yet. It boots from the USB stick, it starts to copy over files, but so far I have stopped it before it has formated the hd (on my windows workstation !!!)

The SME server installation CD is buildt up in a bit different way, and it is rateher complex, so I figured out I had to do one more easy and "stright forward and easy" installation first.

I think the first Linux USB installer from USB does work now, even though I have not used it for making a complete installation yet. I think it is possible to make a simular USB stick installer for the SME server as well (99.999 % !) even though it is more complicated. (The files for the bootup is not directly accessable at the SME, they has to (?) be pulled out (?) from "images". On the other Linux distribution I used they were direct accessable, and it was not a number of "images" like for the SME, it was only one alternative, and all files was direct available so the could just be copied over.

tariqf ->

One thing I am courious about - Why do you want to make an USB stick installer ? After all it will only be usable on rather new PC's, and I think there even might be som new PC's that do not fully do support from a USB device.

Another thing is that you can not just build a USB stick installer and publish it for download like an ordinary ISO and then burn it over to the USB pen like you burn a installation CD.

The USB stick installation variant will require som "manual hand work" making the USB stick bootable and to build it up like a fat or fat 32 Linux file device.

The reason why I jumped into this question was that I neved had made a Linux installation on any electronic memory unit, and I was rather courious about "how to make a _embeded_ Linux, without a floppy or an harddisk so it can run just directly from an electronic media".

Then I thought that a USB installer of "some Linux distribution" could be an interesting variant of this more general consept.

Actually I believe now that to install a Linux that boot off from a USB stick is the easy variant. To make a USB stick installer is quite a lot more difficult. (Because there is few examples, to look at. Have not found any.) To make a USB stick installer for the SME is more complicated than to make it for a more "easy" Linux instalation, because of the certain file structures on the SME installation CD (Using all thos "images".)

(Have 3 different Linux distributions + 1 Linux installer (,I hope, not completely verified yet), running from USB sticks now.)

But if things can be done, the other interesting question is "for what ?" One other thinkable variant could be to actually run the SME server from a USB stick or from a Compact Flash. Then there is a "for what ?" question. If it work that way that all datas is in the ram and all your web pages and all your datas is gone when you turn off the PC, that might not be a much practical soultion ??! (Well they could possible be in the USB stick as well.)

I'm courios about ideas about how to use a USB stick installer or other variants in a practical way.

By the way .. I think there is basically two different ways of doing these things with "the electronic memory".

The one way is to let the datas pass trough a USB controller to the electronic media, a USB stick or a CF in a USB reader (as alredy done.)

The other way is to use a "IDE to Compact Flash converter" so the datas will pass trough the IDE controller instead, so the operating system will "see" the electronic memory as an IDE harddisk. Theoretically the "server distribution" could be just a Compact Flash Card, with a preinstalled server, that you plug in to the PC.

(Have not seen description of any USB device with a Linux file system, only fat, fat32 and NTFS. I believe that the IDE/CF soulution might allow Ext2/3 or other native Linux file systems (???))

Any ideas ?  

Best reg Arne.

[arne]

Drywalldude ->

How does Mandrace from a USB stick work, and how do you install it ?

I started off with 3 different USB stick installations (Slax, Damnsmalllinux and floppyfw) to look for a "typical patern" or how things "normally" is done.

I think it lokks like there is no "normaility" and that they are basically different.

I think the "floppyfw" variant is the "cleanest" one so this was actually that variant I used as an basis for making the USB installer, that I hope works now. (But yet not with SME).

I'm courious if the mandrake variant has some other or equal smart solutions for booting and comunications against the file system.

[wellsi]

I have used RUNT before - a Linux distro specially to run from USB pen/thumb drives. I have forgotton how I had it working - just followed the instructions from the web-site.

I haven't looked into doing an install from a USB drive,  but do manage to install SME without floppy/CD as I use (or maybe mis-use) the Thin Clients contrib. This allows you to install SME on any other machine on the network - as long as the target machine(s) can boot off the LAN or  temporary use of boot floppy/CD on PCs that cannot boot from LAN.

[tariqf]

Hi it is possible to provide a usb download as I've seen other distros do it. We could simply provide a small boot image which is written to the usb using zcat and then the user simply copies the chosen SME iso onto the usb. This is how it's done with debian http://d-i.pascal.at/.


I managed to create a bootable usb using;

(1) Make sure usb is fat16 formattted and unmounted
(2) syslinux /dev/sda1
(3) mounted the usb and copied over the contents of boot.img from the sme server cd (by first mounting the boot.img with mount -o loop ...)

this boots and loads linuz then says "ready" and reboots! I'm sure I'm almost there I just need to see how the sme boot.img decides what to do when it gets to the "ready" point or adapt the debian example and put the sme server iso onto the usb.


will take this further tonight.

[arne]

You are working from Linux ? I'm working from Windows 2000 so it might be slightly different. I think what hapens is that it does not remount the file system on the usb stick when it reboots. Thats the reason that it is hanging, I believe.

Further on I also believe that the syslinux.conf file is the central file that set up the proper parameters neccessary for reading the filesystem during reboot.

At the implementation that does start the reboot and starts the installation this file lookes like this over here:

<startt>

default usb

label usb

kernel vmlinuz
append  rw init=/linuxrc initrd=initrd.img root=/dev/ram0 source=/dev/scsi/host0/lun0/part1 text askmethod upgradeany

<end>

I think/believe that these parts are are application specific for this distribution:

vmlinuz
initrd.img
text askmethod upgradeany

Don't know for sure, but believe that the rest of it is general PC/Linux to mounting, booting and obtaining contact with the USB file system.

By the way I think the proper code for giving it a bootable "mbr" from Windows is:
syslinux.exe -m e:
Where e: is the drive letter.

Arne.

[arne]

Status:

The syslinux.cnf file now looks like this:

prompt 0
implicit 0
timeout 0
default accept

label accept
  kernel vmlinuz
  append rw init=/linuxrc initrd=initrd.img root:=/dev/ram0 source=/dev/scsi/host0/lun0/part1 ks=ks_stub.cfg class=kickstart text devfs=nomount ramdisk_size=8192

A number of system files/images has also been copied up to the root at the USB stick.

Booting works, it's finding the "MBR" loading the initrt.img, autodetecting the hardware, remounting the filesystem etc ..

It comes up with the menue:

Welcome to the SME server, change language.

Then select keyboard.

Select media: CD ROM / HD

Selecting HD /dev/sda1

It then says that it can not find the CD ROM images.

Had a number of bugs before where it said it could not find the kick start file.

Don't know really what a kick start file is, but still wonder if I have given it a kick start file for a CD rom so its looking for images with a CD rom file format (ISO 9something ..??)

Think it can be done, but there is a lot of small tricky things.

One problem for me now is that I do not really now what "kick start" is (even though I have heard the word some times.)

Arne.

[arne]

I then tried do copy over the whole SME iso image to the USB stick.

Ut booted like before from the USB stick and the SME boot image. Then it comes up with the menues for selection of language and keyboard. After that it ascs for installation media. When I then select /dev/scd1 it finds the iso image giving this message:

Running anakonda - please wait.

After a while it is hanging with this message:

No such file or directory: /tmp/ks.cfg

I guess it still has something to to with this "kick start function."

One thing I am wondering about now is if these problems now is related to reading files/image from a fat file system, and if these problems is the equivalent of those you would have if installing with the intallation files on a FAT harddisk. Don't know, but wonder if it could be like that. (???) I think it does not have any problem to see the USB stick as a fat formated SCSSI drive (???).

Any ideas ?  


Arne.

[arne]

Some info about kick start that might be useable:

http://wwwcache.ja.net/dev/kickstart/KickStart-HOWTO.html

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-7.3-Manual/custom-guide/ch-kickstart2.html

[tariqf]

Just a thought but as you are doing this through windows  are you will need your config files in unix format not DOS format as mentioned here http://rocks.npaci.edu/papers/rocks-documentation/faq.html#KICKSTART-FILE.

I'm not sure how you can ensure this from windows as I always do mine in vi on a linux box.

[arne]

Don't know, could be you are right, but I'm afraid there is one other basic problem.

The way I try to do the installation is by telling the Linux installer that the USB stick is a SCSSI harddisk formated with fat and then to make the installation from that. It works for a while during the boot up prosess, but then, there might be a rather seriously and big problem:

From Redhat 9.0 documentation:

"Hard drive installations require the use of the ISO (or CD-ROM) images. An ISO image is a file containing an exact copy of a CD-ROM disk image."

OK, this forst one was not so bad, but then:

"Hard drive installations only work from ext2, ext3, or FAT file systems. If you have a file system other than those listed here, such as reiserfs, you will not be able to perform a hard drive installation."

If this is right it can not be done the way that I try to do it, unless there is some smart way arount it.

I it possible to work trough Linux and then make give the USB stick an ext2 file format and then make it bootable ??? My first thought is "no", but then my second is "why not ?"

By the way there is also one other basic way of doing the file mounting as a "USB file system". (Think I used that on one of the other usb stick installations.) Could that help ?

The Redhat distro can be installed via network (??), could it be some ideas to pick up here ?

I'm just a bit pesimistic about the "scssi/fat method" just now. (Even thouh I think it worked for the other Linux distribution I tried it on, that had a CD file stucture that was quite different from the sme/redhat variant.)

I hope you can find a way around it working direct trough Linux. (Shame on me I don't have a Linux workstation, not just now ..)

Arne.

[arne]

What do I say .. one other basic problem, I can't read:

"Hard drive installations only work from ext2, ext3, or FAT file systems."

It says "or FAT file systems" !!!

OK, so I hope I can be happy to say that my last post was completely nonsence.

Looks like Fat file systems can be used  

[arne]

Have tried diverse ways to solve this issue but it continous to claim that it can not find the kick start file.

I'm afraid that the problem might be that some of the "hidden" or "invisible" system files of the sme installation CD is not contapable with the way that I try to do the mounting of the USB stick as a scssi drive (??!!).

I found this description of the boot process, at the slax.org site that I think is a rather general one (with some minor modifications, this is for the slax distro, booted from CD.):

1) bios detects the CD, reads isolinux.bin and executes it.
2) isolinux.bin contains driver for CDrom and it reads isolinux.cfg from the CD
3) isolinux.cfg contains instructions to load vmlinuz file and initrd.gz file into memory, and execute vmlinuz (it's Linux kernel)
4) linux kernel uses initrd.gz as it's root filesystem. It creates virtual harddisk in RAM and extracts the content of the .gz archive to it. The archive contains essential binaries, ash shell and linuxrc script, which is executed.
5) linuxrc script mounts all available devices (kernel drivers are used now) and if livecd.sgn file is found in some mounted device then it's assumed to be SLAX Live CD.
6) data dirs from /base/ directory, /modules/ directory and /optional/ directory are mounted somewhere and it's content is unioned by unionfs to /union (still in ramdisk)
7) /union is chrooted. This way it seems like /union is the root filesystem /
 /sbin/init is started (in fact, it's /union/sbin/init, but nobody knows  )
9) init reads /etc/inittab and starts with executing apropriate daemons, services, etc. Then login is executed and after login shell is started.

If anybody is able to solve the mysterios about how to pick up the kick start file (or some other solution) it would be great ...

I'm think I'm a bit stuck on that item ..

Best reg Arne.

[arne]

Hello !

Have to admit am rather stuck and lost on this one.

If someone else have a good idea or moke some progress with the USB pen installer, please leave a message.

One thing I'm wondering about is if it cold be that the SME kernel is missing support for the actuall USB comunication. I hope I'm wrong about that.

Arne.

[Treis]

The CD works great when I boot it from the Live CD.

BUT

I can't get Slax to boot from USB. I have used the command: ./create_bootdisk.sh . /dev/sda1 /dev/sda SLAX

All the files seem to be there, only problem is that it gives me a dos error that it's not bootable, when I try to boot up from USB.

please can someone help!

[arne]

A little bit special to discuss Slax desctop on the sme forum, but, ok if it can help the "sme on USB project"..

The main thing for the Slax is this change in the syslinux.conf file:

append probeusb max_loop=255 initrd=initrd.gz init=linuxrc livecd_subdir=/ load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 ramdisk_size=9999 root=/dev/ram0 rw

By the way, the sme distro also use the syslinux program as startup/boot device. (But I don't think they have compiled in the same kernel modules as the sme server an vise versa.

Works so fare only for the 2.4.x kernel variant.