On 09/26/2017 08:57 PM, Frank Scheiner wrote:
I'll describe details maybe later this week. In short, it works similar
in general to what I described for the Power Mac G5 (11,2). On the
Xserve G4 I used it without separate partition for `/boot` without an
issue (the partition for `/` was formatted with EXT4 during the original
Wheezy installation on this machine). It cost me some time to find out
what was the correct setting to activate the serial console. By default
Grub uses a glass console, even if there is no graphics card installed.
But this is usually not an issue for the workstations.
As a follow-up to [1] but maybe better placed under the subject of this
thread, the promised details for the Grub installation on an Xserve G4
with Debian Sid.
The Xserve G4 originally had Debian Wheezy installed which was first
upgraded to Debian Jessie and then to Debian Sid. To be able to
successfully boot with the current Linux kernel 4.12.x:
1. I needed to blacklist the `rack-meter` module. It is loaded
automatically by kernel 4.12.x of Debian Sid but not by 3.16.x of Debian
Jessie - don't know why. But both kernels panic after it was loaded.
2. Because I couldn't successfully boot with kernel 4.12.x, I wanted to
fall back to kernel 3.16.x to fix things, but this also didn't work out
of the box, as the `/dev/disk` directory in the - possibly recreated -
initrd of kernel 3.16.x did not contain a `by-uuid` directory, but the
root FS was given by UUID in the kernel command line provided by yaboot.
I don't know if this was done by Sid, Jessie or Wheezy originally. With
a Debian installer CD-ROM I could "fix" things by using the actual `sd`
device.
For the Grub installation I used the same approach as in [1] and not the
`grub-install` command to rule out additional sources of errors:
# GRUB-IEEE1275 setup in Xserve G4 (1,2) #
## Install grub-ieee1275 ##
```
# apt install grub-ieee1275
```
## Full file list for grub image ##
Placed in `~/grub/`, copied from `/usr/lib/grub/powerpc-ieee1275` - this
time in a more useful form for copy-and-paste:
```
archelp.mod bitmap.mod bitmap_scale.mod blocklist.mod boot.mod bufio.mod
cat.mod cmp.mod configfile.mod cpio.mod crypto.mod datehook.mod date.mod
datetime.mod disk.mod echo.mod elf.mod ext2.mod fat.mod font.mod
fshelp.mod gettext.mod gfxmenu.mod gfxterm.mod gzio.mod halt.mod
help.mod hexdump.mod hfs.mod hfsplus.mod ieee1275_fb.mod kernel.img
linux.mod loadenv.mod loopback.mod lsmmap.mod ls.mod memdisk.mod
memrw.mod minicmd.mod moddep.lst msdospart.mod normal.mod part_apple.mod
part_msdos.mod parttool.mod probe.mod read.mod reboot.mod regexp.mod
relocator.mod scsi.mod search_fs_file.mod search_fs_uuid.mod
search_label.mod search.mod setjmp.mod sleep.mod suspend.mod
terminal.mod test.mod trig.mod true.mod video_colors.mod video_fb.mod
videoinfo.mod video.mod
```
## Partition table ##
```
~# mac-fdisk -l
/dev/sda
# type name length base
( size ) system
/dev/sda1 Apple_partition_map Apple 63 @ 1 (
31.5k) Partition map
/dev/sda2 Apple_Bootstrap untitled 1954 @ 64
(977.0k) NewWorld bootblock
/dev/sda3 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 untitled 613027344 @ 2018
(292.3G) Linux native
/dev/sda4 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 swap 12113037 @
613029362 ( 5.8G) Linux swap
/dev/sda5 Apple_Free Extra 49 @
625142399 ( 24.5k) Free space
Block size=512, Number of Blocks=625142448
DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0
```
## Embedded config file ##
NOTICE: No separate partition for `/boot` used this time!
`~/grub/grub-embedded-config.cfg`
```
insmod serial
insmod terminal
insmod part_apple
insmod ext2
terminal_input serial_ieee1275/scca console
terminal_output serial_ieee1275/scca console
set root=(ieee1275/hd,apple3)
set prefix=(ieee1275/hd,apple3)/boot/grub
configfile /boot/grub/grub.cfg
```
## Actual config file ##
NOTICE: No separate partition for `/boot` used this time!
`/boot/grub/grub.cfg`
```
set root=(ieee1275/hd,apple3)
timeout=10
#default=0
menuentry "Debian GNU/Linux Sid (powerpc)" {
linux /boot/vmlinux root=/dev/sda3 console=tty1 console=ttyPZ0,57600n8
initrd /boot/initrd.img
}
```
## Command to create the grub image ##
```
~/grub# grub-mkimage -c ./grub-embedded-config.cfg -o ../grub.img -O
powerpc-ieee1275 -d . -p '(ieee1275/hd,apple3)/boot/grub' *.mod
```
## Installation on HFS partition ##
This time with correct command and directory names (compared to [1]):
```
~# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
~# cp grub.img /mnt/
~# sync
~# df -h
[...]
/dev/sda2 974K 852K 122K 88% /mnt
[...]
~# umount /mnt
```
Cheers,
Frank
[1]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2017/09/msg00034.html
