repack(decompress) / pack zImage

Altera_Forum · ‎05-18-2010

Hi all,

is any way and tools, how to repack zImage and view/edit the files in zImage - /bin, /dev, /etc, /home, /lib, /mnt, /proc, /sbin, /sys, /tmp, /usr, /var ?

And after editing for example rc in /etc is any way, how to pack into zImage (without make) ?

Thank you very much.

Jan Naceradsky, Czech Republic

Altera_Forum · ‎05-19-2010

You will need to search the gzip magic 1F 8B, gunzip, then you get the kernel. Next search the gzip magic again for initramfs, zcat and cpio. Not a easy job.

- Hippo

Altera_Forum · ‎05-19-2010

Oh no...:(

I found that there is two commands, which is possible to run in NIOSII EDS Command line:

/>nios2-elf-readelf -a zImage // which reports:

Elf header:

Magic: xxx

Class: xxx

xxx

Type: EXEC

Machine: Altera Nios II

xx

etc.

/>nios2-elf-ar

which should be able to delete, replace, extract or add file etc., but when i run

/>nios2-elf-ar p zImage

nios2-elf-ar:zImage:File format not recognized

/>

Why ????

Is anywhere some manual for this command (nios2-elf-ar) ?

When I start from other side, is any way, how "repair" uClinux zImage, when i only want to edit and compile my user program, edit some etc/rc and *.conf files and after this create zImage or any way upgrade or modify my zImage on Altera fpga without install whole package:

- download the tar file nios2-linux-20090730.tar, which take 1.6GB and after install, how you write on nioswiki about 6GB or more free disk space.

I found, that i can install nios2-gcc compiler, which has 69MB on http://www.niosftp.com/pub/gnutools/...080203.tar.bz2 (http://www.niosftp.com/pub/gnutools/...080203.tar.bz2)

but after this i will need to have some parts of uClinux instalation ...

Thank you for some answers.

Jan Naceradsky