So I bought myself a T410, because I've heard that Debian GNU/Hurd can run on it. I thought I would give it a try. The latest Debian GNU/Hurd netinstall failed. I believe it created the ext2 partitions / and /home, formatted them as ext2, but left them readable not writable. So of course the installer could not install the necessary packages.
So Samuel mentioned that I should try crossinstall: https://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd/running/debian/CrossInstall For those of you who don't know, if you run Debian GNU/Linux and have a spare parition, then you can use crossinstall to install Debian GNU/Hurd! I'm drafting a blog post to talk about how to use it. I'm stuck at "Preparing to boot" stage as documented in the wiki. I've copied Damien's grub entry, but it's can't seem to find my hurd-root partition. Here is my partition scheme for the T410: |------------+---------+-----------------+------------------| | #1 primary | 59.4 GB | hurd-root / | /dev/wd0 #1 | | #2 primary | 60.3 GB | hurd-home /home | /dev/wd0 #2 | | #3 primary | 5 GB | linux /boot | bootable flag on | | #4 logical | | | | | #5 logical | 999.3MB | hurd-swap | | | #6 logical | 54.3 GB | crypto linux / | | |------------+---------+-----------------+------------------| I did use GNU/Linux to run #+BEGIN_SRC shell mke2fs -o hurd /dev/sda1 mke2fs -o hurd /dev/sda2 #+END_SRC So I know that /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2 are ext2. Here is my /boot/grub/custom.cfg #+begin_example menuentry "pci-arbiter + acpi + rumpdisk" { set root=(hd0,msdos1) multiboot /boot/gnumach-1.8-486.gz root=part:1:device:wd0 noide -s module /hurd/pci-arbiter.static pci-arbiter \ --host-priv-port='${host-port}' \ --device-master-port='${device-port}' \ --next-task='${acpi-task}' \ '$(task-create)' '$(task-resume)' module /hurd/acpi.static acpi \ --next-task='${disk-task}' \ '$(acpi-task=task-create)' module /hurd/rumpdisk.static rumpdisk \ --next-task='${fs-task}' \ '$(disk-task=task-create)' module /hurd/ext2fs.static ext2fs \ --multiboot-command-line='${kernel-command-line}' \ --exec-server-task='${exec-task}' -T typed '${root}' \ '$(fs-task=task-create)' module /hurd/exec.static exec '$(exec-task=task-create)' } #+end_example I have tried: #+BEGIN_EXAMPLE shell root=part:0:device:wd0 root=part:1:device:wd0 root=part:2:device:wd0 root=part:3:device:wd0 #+END_EXAMPLE But Mach get stuck and can't find part:1. Now GNU Mach does say: #+BEGIN_example vendor 8086 product 3b2f (SATA mass storage, AHCI 1.0, revision 0x06) at \ pci0 dev 31 function 2 not configured ... (It shows a lot of devices not configured) blakefs: self-test passed chacha: Portable C ChaCha ex2fs: part:1:device:wd0: No such device or address #+END_Example So does that mean it detected my SATA SSD? Also my SATA SSD is ancient. It has a max capacity of 180GB. So it's a bit odd and old. Maybe that's why I am having problems? Debian GNU/Linux doesn't mind using it. Here are some commands that I ran on Debian GNU/Linux on the T410 to try to double check my work. #+BEGIN_SRC shell joshua@gimli:~$ sudo fdisk -l [sudo] password for joshua: Disk /dev/sda: 167.68 GiB, 180045766656 bytes, 351651888 sectors Disk model: INTEL SSDSC2CW18 Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0x050ce17c Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sda1 * 2048 116017672 116015625 55.3G 83 Linux /dev/sda2 116043776 233846783 117803008 56.2G 83 Linux /dev/sda3 233846784 243611647 9764864 4.7G 83 Linux /dev/sda4 243613694 351649791 108036098 51.5G 5 Extended /dev/sda5 243613696 245565439 1951744 953M 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda6 245567488 351649791 106082304 50.6G 83 Linux Disk /dev/mapper/sda6_crypt: 50.57 GiB, 54297362432 bytes, 106049536 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes joshua@gimli:~$ joshua@gimli:~$ joshua@gimli:~$ joshua@gimli:~$ sudo fsck.ext2 /dev/sda1 e2fsck 1.47.0 (5-Feb-2023) /dev/sda1: clean, 4080/3629056 files, 201693/14501953 blocks joshua@gimli:~$ joshua@gimli:~$ sudo fsck.ext2 /dev/sda2 e2fsck 1.47.0 (5-Feb-2023) /dev/sda2: clean, 11/3686400 files, 129431/14725376 blocks joshua@gimli:~$ joshua@gimli:~$ mount | grep sda /dev/mapper/sda6_crypt on / type xfs (rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,logbufs=8,logbsize=32k,noquota) /dev/sda3 on /boot type ext4 (rw,relatime) joshua@gimli:~$ joshua@gimli:~$ joshua@gimli:~$ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt joshua@gimli:~$ sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/home joshua@gimli:~$ joshua@gimli:~$ mount | grep sda /dev/mapper/sda6_crypt on / type xfs (rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,logbufs=8,logbsize=32k,noquota) /dev/sda3 on /boot type ext4 (rw,relatime) /dev/sda1 on /mnt type ext2 (rw,relatime) /dev/sda2 on /mnt/home type ext2 (rw,relatime) #+END_SRC Any thoughts? Thanks, Joshua P.S. So the help email ends here, but if you feel like reading/editing my draft of this blog post for extra credit, then feel free! BEGIN THE DRAFT BLOG POST: So, I have been told that Debian GNU/Hurd can run on a T410 with a SATA SSD. It gets its disk drivers from a [[https://github.com/rumpkernel][rumpkernel]]. That's pretty awesome. I downloaded the [[https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/latest/hurd-i386/20230608/iso-cd/][Debian netinstaller iso image,]] but I could not get it to completely install. It appeared that the installer created the ext2 partition, but the partition was readable, not writable. So of course no packages definitions could be stored on disk. Odd. Luckily, I can use Debian GNU/Linux to install Debian GNU/Hurd on a spare partition via [[https://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd/running/debian/CrossInstall][CrossInstall]]. That is pretty slick! Well we might as well try it! Here is my partition scheme for the T410: |------------+---------+-----------------+------------------| | #1 primary | 59.4 GB | hurd-root / | /dev/wd0 #1 | | #2 primary | 60.3 GB | hurd-home /home | /dev/wd0 #2 | | #3 primary | 5 GB | linux /boot | bootable flag on | | #4 logical | | | | | #5 logical | 999.3MB | hurd-swap | | | #6 logical | 54.3 GB | crypto linux / | | |------------+---------+-----------------+------------------| #+BEGIN_SRC # mke2fs -o hurd /dev/sda1 # mke2fs -o hurd /dev/sda2 #+END_SRC Next I needed to install the latest and greatest crossinstall. I added this to ~/etc/apt/sources.list~ ~deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian sid main~ #+BEGIN_SRC shell # apt update $ apt search crosshurd # let's install the latest version crosshurd/unstable 1.7.60 all # apt install crosshurd #+END_SRC Now let's mount my two newly re-created Hurd partitions, and run crosshurd! #+BEGIN_SRC shell # mount /dev/sda1 /mnt # mkdir /mnt/home # mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/home $ mount #+END_SRC #+RESULTS: : blah blah blah : blah blah blah : /dev/sda1 on /mnt type ext2 : /dev/sda2 on /mnt/home type ext2 Now we can do our crosshurd command! #+BEGIN_SRC shell # cd /mnt # crosshurd #+END_SRC The crosshurd command is kind of cool. I answered ~/mnt~, ~gnu~, ~i386~. Apparently you can use crosshurd to install kfreebsd, which is Debian but using the FreeBSD kernel. That's fairly cool! But the command failed fairly quickly, because I do not have some gpg keys. Well let's fix that! Please note that the below is the proper way to do it. I found an easier deprecated way to do it, and that's what I did. #+BEGIN_SRC shell $ gpg --recv-keys LONGKEYSTRINGNMUBERS $ gpg --recv-keys LONGKEYSTRINGNMUBERS2 $ gpg -a --export LONGKEYSTRINGNMUBERS > debian-ports-archive-automatic-signing-key.asc # mv debian-ports-archive-automatic-signing-key.asc /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/ # crosshurd #+END_SRC What I actually did: #+BEGIN_SRC shell $ gpg --recv-keys LONGKEYSTRINGNMUBERS $ gpg --recv-keys LONGKEYSTRINGNMUBERS2 $ gpg -a --export LONGKEYSTRINGNMUBERS | sudo apt-key add - # crosshurd #+END_SRC It looked like everything was installed, then it said, copying this machine's resolve.conf to the new partition. If not correct, then please edit. Hopefully it is! So now I need to add a boot entry to =/etc/grub.d/custom.cfg=. Apparently whatever you add in that file, will automatically appear in Grub on the next boot! Note that I have to add the ~-s~ to the kernel args. After I run ./native-install twice, I can remove it. #+begin_example menuentry "pci-arbiter + acpi + rumpdisk" { set root=(hd0,msdos1) multiboot /boot/gnumach-1.8-486.gz root=part:1:device:wd0 noide -s module /hurd/pci-arbiter.static pci-arbiter \ --host-priv-port='${host-port}' \ --device-master-port='${device-port}' \ --next-task='${acpi-task}' \ '$(task-create)' '$(task-resume)' module /hurd/acpi.static acpi \ --next-task='${disk-task}' \ '$(acpi-task=task-create)' module /hurd/rumpdisk.static rumpdisk \ --next-task='${fs-task}' \ '$(disk-task=task-create)' module /hurd/ext2fs.static ext2fs \ --multiboot-command-line='${kernel-command-line}' \ --exec-server-task='${exec-task}' -T typed '${root}' \ '$(fs-task=task-create)' module /hurd/exec.static exec '$(exec-task=task-create)' } #+end_example -- Joshua Branson Sent from the Hurd
