[fedora-arm] Beagleboard questions

[robsch at robsch.eu]

Hello,

I am new to fedora-arm, but not to Linux or other Unix-Like operating
systems like BSD etc.

I want to run Linux on my beagleboard. 
Therefore I downloaded the root-fs from 
http://ftp.linux.org.uk/pub/linux/arm/fedora/rootfs/rootfs-f11.tar.bz2
and unttarred it onto the second partition (ext3-formatted) of
a MMC/SD card. There is a first small FAT partition for kernel images
and u-boot tools.
I decided to choose the latest kernel source from kernel.org (2.6.30.5)
For cross compilation I choosed the armv5tel-redhat-linux-gnueabi 
toolchain.
Of course, I changed the two lines for the cross compiler and the
architecture in the top-level-Makefile.
For the kernel config I choosed the one found in the configs directory
of the kernel source (omap.beagle).
The kernel compliled fine. In order to produce an uImage I had
to compile the mkimage-tool from the u-boot tools.
I ended up with an uImage kernel image which copied to the FAT
partition of the SD.
The kernel booted but it had problems to mount root "Cannot open
/dev/mmcblk0p2" although the drivers for SD/MMC are included
when I use make menuconfig.
I googled around and found the following kernel config:
http://rcn-ee.homeip.net:81/dl/omap/beagle/v2.6.29-58cf2f1-oer31.1/defconfig
With this config file root was mounted and after adding entries
for /dev/ttyS2 in /etc/event.d/ I could login with guest and then su.

Unfortunately, the USB HOST connector does not work. No USB device
is recognized (even after reboot).
What kernel config file and kernel version should I use?

The next point is: I want to cross compile the complete root-fs.
How can I achieve this? I don't want to use the rfsbuild/qemu
approach, because this is quite time consuming.
Are there scripts available for this job?

Thank you in advance.

Robert