Dear Sir :
I will take a look at :
https://github.com/glaubitz/powerpc-utils/commit/4a3f51762fdd90112721e3c436973aec51beb95c
Just to see if I can get a handle on the problem.
Also, I am surprised that this is a script and not a binary. I would
have thought that getting access to openfirmware data as well as the
management of that data ( for boot dev etc ) would have all been done
in C code.
Thank you very much for the detailed instructions in your previous email
wherein I see :
> There are only three known ways the images can fail.
>
> 1) Packages are not installable in the step "Select and install
> software", something you can always skip and perform after the
> machine has been rebooted. People seem to assume that it's
> mandatory to install extra software during the initial installation
> which is not true. It's purely optional and you should just
> install the basic system from CD.
Of course.
I went for the most basic and trivial config with zero graphical
software and merely ssh and the essential baseline tools. Nothing
more. If I could make telnetd work then I would even skip sshd.
> 2) Installation of the base system failing because of vim-tiny
> being uninstallable. An image that has this problem is unusable
> and I was sure I deleted all images that suffered this problem.
>
> The background of this problem is explained here:
>
> https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2020/03/msg00221.html
I do not need vim during install and in fact I did use "printf" to
append my network config to /etc/network/interfaces as well as to create
a reasonable /etc/resolv.conf for the /target that exists during
install. I did not see any problem with vim-tiny but then again I was
never able to boot the newer install results after the installer said
"reboot".
> 3) GRUB not being installable on PowerMacs due to ofpathname not
> returning the correct OpenFirmware pathnames on Apple PowerMacs
> and hence grub-installer unable to figure out the correct OF
> path.
>
> The GRUB issue can be solved by installing GRUB manually as
> explained by Frank Scheiner:
>
> https://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2017/09/msg00034.html
> https://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2017/10/msg00005.html
Strangely I have never been able to get the openfirmware prompt to
appear on this particular machine I am testing and it may be a
characteristic of the Sun USB keyboards I am using.
--
Dennis Clarke
RISC-V/SPARC/PPC/ARM/CISC
UNIX and Linux spoken
GreyBeard and suspenders optional
