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Published at 5.05.05
Author: Lars-Anders Schmuhl
Translator: Sebastian Kueppers
Languages: de
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Tomsrtbt - Eine Mini-Distribution

Tomsrtbt stands for: "Tom's floppy which has a root filesystem and is also bootable." and is "The most GNU/Linux on one floppy disk". It reads so in the FAQ for Tomsrtbt 2.0.103, a linux distribution which only needs one floppy disk and will be introduced here.

Lets start

Tomsrtbt is a "Mini-Linux-distribution". It contains a rather old kernel (version 2.2.20), some kernel modules for usual hardware (mostly IDE, SCSI, network interfaces and PCMCIA) and a number of hand-picked tools. The current version 2.0.102 can be obtained from [1]. You can choose between those versions:

  • tomsrtbt-2.0.103.tar.gz (Installation on Linux)
  • tomsrtbt-2.0.103.dos.zip (Installation on DOS)
  • tomsrtbt-2.0.103.ElTorito.288.img.bz2 (Bootable CD Installation on Linux)
The installation on linux (as root) is as easy as that: 
  >> tar -xzf tomsrtbt-2.0.103.tar.gz
  >> cd tomsrtbt-2.0.103/
  >> su
  >> ./install.s
  
  Don't forget to READ the FAQ.
  
  Insert a blank writable 3.5" floppy diskette then strike ENTER.
  
  About to fdformat /dev/fd0u1722
  Double-sided, 82 tracks, 21 sec/track. Total capacity 1722 kB.
  Formatting ... done
  Verifying ... done
  About to dd floppy image
  3444+0 Records in
  3444+0 Records out
  About to verify floppy image
  Succeeded!
Done.

Boot with the floppy

Simply insert the floppy disk and start: 

  Welcome to tomsrtbt-2.0.103 by Tom Oehser
  
  http://www.toms.net/rb/
  
          #####
         #######
         ##O#O##
         #VVVVV#
       ##  VVV  ##
      #          ##
     #            ##
     #            ###          .~.
    QQ#           ##Q          /VQQQQQQ#        #QQQQQQ      // \QQQQQQQ#     #QQQQQQQ      /(   )  QQQQQ#######QQQQQ         ^`~'^
  
   Other distributions       tomsrtbt
  
  (15 seconds...)
At first you can enter some boot parameters (boot:) or simply press return. After that a video mode is asked for. Normally pressing SPACE fits here, too. Then the kernel will be booted. When prompted for a keymap enter "10" and press return to gain the german keypad. Now you'll see:

What you have is... AHA152X AHA1542 AIC7XXX BUSLOGIC DAC960 DEC_ELCP(TULIP) EATA EEXPRESS/PRO/PRO100 EL2 EL3 EXT2 EXT3 FAT FD IDE-CD/DISK/TAPE IMM INITRD ISO9660 JOLIET LOOP MATH_EMULATION MINIX MSDOS NCR53C8XX NE2000 NFS NTFS PARPORT PCINE2K PCNET32 PLIP PPA RTL8139 SD SERIAL/_CONSOLE SLIP SMC_ULTRA SR ST VFAT VID_SELECT VORTEX WD80x3 .exrc 3c589_cs agetty ash badblocks basename boot.b buildit.s busybox bz2bzImage bzip2 cardmgr cardmgr.pid cat chain.b chattr chgrp chmod chown chroot clear clone.s cmp common config cp cpio cs cut date dd dd-lfs debugfs ddate df dhcpcd-- dirname dmesg domainname ds du dumpe2fs e2fsck echo egrep elvis ex false fdflush fdformat fdisk filesize find findsuper fmt fstab grep group gunzip gzip halt head hexdump hexedit host.conf hostname hosts httpd i82365 ifconfig ile init inittab insmod install.s issue kernel key.lst kill killall killall5 ld ld-linux length less libc libcom_err libe2p libext2fs libtermcap libuuid lilo lilo.conf ln loadkmap login ls lsattr lsmod lua luasocket man map md5sum miterm mkdir mkdosfs mke2fs mkfifo mkfs.minix mknod mkswap more more.help mount mt mtab mv nc necho network networks nmclan_cs nslookup passwd pax pcmcia_core pcnet_cs pidof ping poweroff printf profile protocols ps pwd rc.0 rc.S rc.custom rc.custom.gz rc.pcmcia reboot rescuept reset resolv.conf rm rmdir rmmod route rsh rshd script sed serial serial_cs services setserial settings.s sh shared slattach sleep sln sort split stab strings swapoff swapon sync tail tar tcic tee telnet telnetd termcap test tomshexd tomsrtbt.FAQ touch traceroute true tune2fs umount undeb-- unpack.s unrpm-- update utmp vi vi.help view watch wc wget which xargs xirc2ps_cs yecho yes zcat

This is quite informative
And we will continue with the mandantory login.
login: "root"
password: "xxxx" (yeah, really xxxx)
As shell you can now use the ash (and not the used bash-environment).
Done again.

The bootdisk can now be removed from the disk drive. Using the keys ALT+F1 to ALT+F4 you can switch between the 4 virtual consoles. The root-filesystem (minix) is located in a RAM-disk. The computer you use should have at least 8 Megs of RAM. Important and good: Not a single bit will be written on the local harddisk and nothing will be changed on the local system (if your not doing something by yourself). The above mentioned programs and tools are now to your service. By the way: Multicall binaries are used here (Busybox [3]). Eased up you can say that this is a binary that can be called several names and which will behave differently (the system provides the name as command line argument 0). That is a trick to save space.

Possibilities

Network
Because my LAN does not provide a DHCP server (would work with tomsrtbt) I have to configure my class-C-network manually (my NE2000-compatible network interface has been detected): 

  >> ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.123 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
OK, network is working 
  >> ping 192.168.1.1
Ok, other machines in the network can be found, too. With traceroute, route, wget (can do ftp and http) and telnetd/telnet some important network tools can be used. Using route you could even set up a router (at least for static routes).

Filesystems
Using 

  >> fdisk /dev/hdc
I have a look at my local partitions. Using 
  >> mount -t ext2 /dev/hdc1 /mnt
I mount them into the filesystem. With 
  >> umount /mnt
I can unmount them again. A faulty ext2-filesystem could be repaired by using 
  >> e2fsck /dev/hdc1
now. The list of supported file systems is good. ext2, ext3, minix, msdos, fat, vfat, iso9660, etc. This is quite useful to rescue important data e.g. from a system that won't boot any more or correct startscripts that lead to a system crash during startup. Also a data rescue over network or onto a streamer can be done.

A look at the list of available programs show the many possibilities of usage.
Finally the system can be halted correctly using 

  >> halt
.

More possibilities

Add-ons
At [1] you can find even more add-ons which provide further kernel modules (e.g. usb) or additional programms. All software is shrunk as much as possible to save place ("less is more"). Also Busybox [3] shall be mentioned here again.

Customizing
Advantage users have the possibility to modify the system to their needs. As root you can use 

  >> ./unpack.s tomsrtbt.raw
to unpack the image. In the created subdirectories tomsrtbt-2.0.103.unpacked/1/ and tomsrtbt-2.0.103.unpacked/2/ own changes can be included. Executing 
  >> ./buildit.s
will recreate the image with your changes.

Boot-CD
Another possibility is creating a bootable CD-Rom agreeing the "El Torito" standard [4]. More information about that can be found in README.eltorito file of the mkisofs-pakage. In general a disk image is broght to cd wich will boot like a floppy disk. This way you can use the great amout of space to bring user data to the system. And here is how to do so: 

  >> bunzip2 tomsrtbt-2.0.103.ElTorito.288.img.bz2
  >> mkdir meineCD
  >> mkdir meineCD/boot
  >> cp tomsrtbt-2.0.103.ElTorito.288.img meineCD/boot/
Now copy everything that shall be burned onto the CD-Rom to "meineCD". After that you create a ISO-image of "meineCD". 
  >> cd meineCD
  >> mkisofs -b boot/tomsrtbt-2.0.103.ElTorito.288.img               -c boot/boot.catalog -o meineCD.iso
  
  Size of boot image is 5760 sectors -> Emulating a 2880 kB floppy
  Total translation table size: 2048
  Total rockridge attributes bytes: 0
  Total directory bytes: 2048
  Path table size(bytes): 22
  Max brk space used 0
  5055 extents written (9 Mb)
The ISO-image is named "meineCD.iso". It can be written to CD with: 
  >> cdrecord dev=0,0,0 -v meineCD.iso
Done.
A Wiki where you can get some help and can find discussions about Tomsrtbt can be found at [2]. If you are only looking for a linux-system that can be started from a CD-Rom and does not change the harddisk you should have a look at Knoppix [5] which is more comfortable (as it is meant to be for this group of users).

Conclusion

Tomsrtbt can be installed and used "out of the box" quite easy (you don't have to be a UNIX guru). Tomsrtbt works great for repair- and rescue-work if you are unable to boot from the harddisk. By its network ambitions and its easy extensibility it can be used as "Hacker-Tool" (in its positive means!), too. It is rather small but provides lots of software integrated.

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