On Mon, Oct 20, 2003 at 12:45:47PM -0700, Tom Rini wrote: > On Mon, Oct 20, 2003 at 09:31:46PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > On Mon, Oct 20, 2003 at 11:10:21AM -0700, Tom Rini wrote: > > > On Sun, Oct 19, 2003 at 11:29:38AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > > > > > > Hello, > > > > > > > > In order to continue work on making debian-installer subarch friendly, i > > > > now launch a second round of investigation concerning the way different > > > > subarches boot. The situation as i understand it is : > > > [snip] > > > > prep: no idea. yaboot doesn't work, nor does quik. There is no OF, but i > > > > think some kind of direct booting as well as netbooting is available. > > > > kernel with builtin initrd should work. > > > > > > Boots from the firmware the zImage*.prep from arch/ppc/boot/images in > > > the kernel. To build a ramdisk into this, the ramdisk to be used is > > > placed at arch/ppc/boot/images/ramdisk.image.gz, and 'make > > > zImage.initrd' is issued. This file is used on all PReP systems, and > > > the command to boot varries from Motorola to IBM PReP machines (Motorola > > > has PPCBug, and for disk it's pboot ...., and 'help pboot' should > > > describe the arguments, for netboot, 'help niot' or 'help noit', I > > > forget which and 'nbo' to get and boot the kernel. > > > > Ok, so you only need the zImage.initrd or the zImage (which is renamed > > to /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.22-powerpc on debian). > > I haven't looked at the packages in ages, but since CONFIG_ALL_PPC > produces many compressed bootable images, I'll take your word at it > here.
Yep, altough the packages in the archive only produce the pmac images. I am currently preparing packages which produce images for all of the supported subarches. > > > In general, to embed an initrd into an image (.coff, etc) the image must > > > be at arch/ppc/boot/images/ramdisk.image.gz and then 'make > > > zImage.initrd'. > > > > Yep, i know, the problem is that the initrd must contain some kernel > > modules, which are built during the kernel build phase, so it is not > > possible to build the initrd before the kernel, nor it is possible to > > build the kernel before the initrd, so ... > > It is, kinda. You just do dep/config/modules, build the ramdisk, make > zImage.initrd. Sure, but the kernel is built in one step by the kernel-patch-2.4.22-powerpc package, while the initrd is built in another step by the debian-installer stuff, ... > > > > 2) We develop a separate tool (like sparc's piggyback i was told) > > > > which is able to add a initrd onto an existing kernel. > > > > > > As the images used, prior to additional tools being run on them (such as > > > mkprep) use an ldscript to determine locations, this might be possible. > > > > Mmm, i think it may be possible to create such a tool, altough i have > > the feeling that it must be built from the kernel sources maybe (since > > there is no need to duplicate the code for it already found in the > > kernel) and that it needs to be done differently for prep, chrp and > > pmac. Don't know if chrp-rs6k is different from chrp though. > > It shouldn't need to be done differently on pmac, prep and chrp (and > chrp-rs6k is not different here, the difference is in mangling the final > image, more or less). They all make use of the same variables, which > are in the linker script. Which in turn is in the kernel source. > So if you can keep some intermediate images > around, things should be OK. i.e. ship the 'zImage's in their last > state before they stop being true ELF files, and you can then modify Is this the vmlinux found at the toplevel directory, and used directly by yaboot ? > things (new initrd, etc) and then re-mangle the image (mkprep, etc). Yep, i would have to prepare a package including all these tools as a result of the kernel build, and these can be used later on. Thanks for your help. Friendly, Sven Luther
