To boot from the compact flash card of the TS-7200 the following steps were executed:

Partition the compact flash card

Put the Flash card in the USB reader and insert it into a linux desktop PC.

Instructions as documented in the Linux for ARM on TS-72xx User's Guide)

To partition the flash card type:

fdisk /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disc
1. d (to delete existing partitions. Repeat for all partitions)
2. n (for new partition)
3. p (for Primary partition)
4. 1 (make the new partition primary number 1)
5. hit the enter key for the default starting cylinder
6. hit the enter key again for the default last cylinder
7. p (to print out the partition table)
8. If the first partition does not have a star in the boot field, then enter a at the prompt
and then 1 to make the first partition bootable.
9. To commit these changes to the disk, enter w to write out the new partition table to the
disk.

Format the Compact Flash Card

To format the flash card as a EXT2 file format type:

mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda1

NOTE: Since our TS-7200 does not have the optional RTC (Real Time Clock) the date will always read 01/01/1970 on startup. This will cause an error by the fsck command and the system will not boot.

We can solve this problem by turning off the fsck process by typing:

tune2fs -i 0 /dev/sda1

The solution to this problem was found here in the TS-7200 user group
Download and Unpack the Debian Distribution

1. Download the Debian Sarge filesystem [link]
2. Copy the tar file to the Compact Flash
3. Unpack the file by typing:

tar -xzf debian-sarge-udev-11-15-2007.tar.gz

Configure RedBoot to Boot from Compact Flash

1. Start up the TS-7200 board and press Ctrl-C in Hyperterminal to access RedBoot
2. type "fconfig" at the RedBoot command prompt
3. Press Enter for "Run script at boot: true"
4. For the boot script type in the following 2 lines (press Enter between the lines:
fis load vmlinux
exec -c "console=ttyAM0,115200 root=/dev/hda1"
5. Press Enter on the next blank script line (>> prompt)
6. Press Enter for the rest of the options to keep them the same
7. For the "Update RedBoot non-volatile configuration - continue (y/n)? -- Press y
8. Typereset to reboot the system

If all goes well you we get the login prompt upon reboot: