Hi, i tried to install sarge with daily d-i on a ppc64 machine and failed in a number of interesting ways :). i'm new to ppc hardware so be aware that i might get the arch details wrong.
the machine is a standard IBM 7043-260 (CHRP) with 2 x 64bit POWER3 processors, 1 GiB of RAM and 2 x SCSI disks on the on-board symbios controller. the only unusual detail is the graphic card: a matrox g200 instead of the standard gxt3000p (lucky me ;). all hardware appear to work properly under AIX. the short summary: - the machine doesn't boot due to a 'CLAIM FAILED' error (solved thanks to leighbb on #ppc64). - the SCSI driver (sym53c8xx) has (seemingly irq) problems and doesn't find any disk (leighbb again indicated the road to one possible solution). the long story: i bravely update the firmware to the latest release available from within AIX. after getting to the OF prompt i do a couple of timid tries to boot from the cdrom following instructions found on the net, but fail (probably due to my newbie status. people say the machine has a chance to boot with yaboot). anyhow, i set up a netboot server following the instruction at: http://master.penguinppc.org/~hollis/linux/rs6k-netboot.shtml and using various kernel+initrd found at: http://people.debian.org/~luther/d-i/images/*/power3/netboot/ i finally managed to start the boot process with: > boot net:<server_ip>,,<client_ip> after loading the 5+ MiB vmlinuz.initrd the OF throws a 'CLAIM FAILED' error. i'm lost. during my first irc session with leighbb on #ppc64 (or #mklinux) i learn a nice black magic trick: - with an hexeditor look for the values '00 0c 00 00' and '00 00 40 00' in the first few bytes of the vmlinuz.initrd file and change both them of them to 'ff ff ff ff'. - into OF change the real-base value: > printenv real-base > setenv real-base 100000 > boot net:<server_ip>,,<client_ip> wow! the penguin smiles on the screen (the unexpected matrox g200 saved me from the serial console). the black magic has to do with the huge size of the kernel+initrd and with hardcoded values on where to expect the firmware (leighbb nows more than me) the d-i process goes on nicely until i get to the storage hardware configuration that appear to hang. looking at the log i see the slooooow progress of the sym53c8xx driver initialization, waiting for tents of HOST RESET, BUS REST and other error messages. after half an hour the initialization is over, but the d-i stops with no disk is found :(. i'm lost again. time for a second session with leighbb (and benh) on #ppc64. i don't have much of a bug report to present, but consensus is reached that it looks like an irq problem, the fact that the d-i uses a 32bit kernel on a 64bit arch appears to be the trigger, so leighbb kindly send me the 64bit kernel he uses to boot his 7043-260s. the kernel has all the drivers i need built-in, so i don't need additional modules. for same reason i had to use the same black magic as above, but i finally mange to get the happy penguin on the screen with: > boot net:<server_ip>,,<client_ip> root=/dev/fd0 load_ramdisk=1 devfs=mount the root.img floppy in in the floppy drive. the boot message tells all the hardware is working, the SCSI driver finds the attached disks without problem, but... kernel panic, no root file system on /dev/fd0... (or samething like that) i convinced myself that the problem is the lack of support for cramfs on the initial ramdisk :-(. the kernel leighbb gave me is probably without the debian patch. so. now i see only two alternatives: - crosscompile a ppc64 kernel with debian patches (i don't have other ppc64 machine at hands) and use the normal d-i root floppy (i need a .config for power3!) - get a stripped down version of the root floppy to fit into a ramfs filesystem (instead of cramfs) do you have any other idea? can someone with more knowledge on the d-i and ppc64 help me on this? i can help debugging the various problems, but the machine is not easily accessible for me. thanks in advance, alessandro -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
