On Fri, Nov 14, 2003 at 08:47:12PM +1100, Anton Blanchard wrote: > > Hi, > > We tested debian-installer (daily build from a day ago) on a ppc64 box > and found a few issues. To keep life interesting, we also used a 2.6 > kernel. > > 1. Installer requires devfs support. In 2.6 devfs is pretty much > deprecated, so it would be nice if d-i could handle a non devfs kernel. > It doesnt look like there are too many places that care. The initrd had > an empty /dev, thats easily fixed. It looks like the stuff that parses > /proc/partitions expects devfs style names but I havent looked into the > code yet.
Past discussion about these issues suggest that devfs is indeed needed, but will not be enabled by default if you don't pass the devfs=mount or something such command. My personal experience on this subject doesn't seem to support this theory, at least for 2.6 kernels. Mmm, maybe it should be possible to create a proper kernel package for your boxes, could you send me a .config file for a 2.4.22 kernel ? Will the standard linuxppc_2_4 tree do, or do you need special patches ? > 2. Installer cant find any packages. Hacking the kernel to return "ppc" > instead of "ppc64" fixes this problem. Im guessing the sparc64 port > of d-i has solved this problem, we just need it too. Well, this would need the corresponding magic to be added arch-detect. I guess ppc64 uses ppc userland, right ? Could you provide us with the output of lspci ? Or maybe hack arch-detect yourself ? As for sparc64. I doubt anyone has already started to work on the sparc port of d-i, so ... > 3. No fdisk found. For some reason only mac-fdisk was available in the > install image. Same as above, d-i doesn't support subarches yet. That said, parted should be available, and normally you should be able to use partitioner and/or autopartkit transparently. What partitioning scheme are your box using ? > 4. shm is not a valid filesystem in 2.6. Changing /sbin/init to use > tmpfs fixed this. Mmm, no idea about this one, maybe a special 2.6 kernel support for d-i would be nice to have, a bit like woody's boot-floppies supported 2.2 and 2.4 kernels ? Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
