Hi all - the issue is resolved. As a reminder - the hardware is a JS21 in an H-chassis.
The PowerPC installer does not run a getty on HVC0 (nor does it provide an option to do so) leaving debian's default PowerPC install non-functional on any Pseries/Power machine without graphics hardware. The modifications required to get Debian release 4 operational on a JS21 are as follows: o /etc/inittab - add these lines to the inittab file: # Start a getty on a the PowerPC Hypervisor console. H0:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 hvc0 o /etc/securetty - add this line to the securetty file: # Run on the PowerPC Hypervisor console hvc0 The challenge here is to rescue the "broken" OS installation - this can be done in two ways (that I know of). 1) Using SMS - boot from the CDROM image and use the rescue64 image to mount / . 2) Boot from the H.Disk and when you get the boot: prompt - enter "Linux single" Once your in single user mode - you can edit the inttab and securetty files. Once I make the changes - i simply enter the init 2 command... and the system is alive and well. (a reboot will work as well). All - thanks for your time on this issue. QUESTION - I assume this is some type of bug... Where can this be posted ? Dave O. _________________________________________________________________ Windows Liveā¢: E-mail. Chat. Share. Get more ways to connect. http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t2_allup_explore_022009