RS6000
Hi, at the office (Linuxcare) we got a new toy: RS6000, 4 processors, 2 gigs of memory, 6x9 gig scsi disks. Naturally, I'd like to put Debian on it (in addition to Yellow Dog, that we are officialy supporting). So... I looked at: http://www.debian.org/ports/powerpc/install/rs6k Which appears to be out of date. I mailed Phillip, but haven't heard back, and the images that the page points to are on a host that cannot be reached! There is another link (the one pointing to a german site) that seems to work.. we'll see how that goes. Anyway, I'm looking for as much information as I can get, so if people could point me to whatever documentation they have found most useful, I would be grateful. Thanks, -- David N. Welton(Circa mea pectora [EMAIL PROTECTED])multa sunt suspiria http://www.efn.org/~davidw (de tua pulchritudine debian.org + prosa.it )que me ledunt misere
Re: RS6000
On Wed, Sep 01, 1999 at 01:04:01PM -0700, Alexander S. Guy wrote: > David> Hi, at the office (Linuxcare) we got a new toy: RS6000, 4 > David> processors, 2 gigs of memory, 6x9 gig scsi disks. > > Is this one of IBM's new Pizzaz boxes? No, it's an F50. > The steps should be something like the following: Thanks:-) I'll try that... should be fun! -- David N. Welton(Circa mea pectora [EMAIL PROTECTED])multa sunt suspiria http://www.efn.org/~davidw (de tua pulchritudine debian.org + prosa.it )que me ledunt misere
Re: RS6000
Progress: ftp://ftp.fh-bingen.de/pub/linux/linuxppc/kernel_rs6000/zImage2.1.125.working Actually tries to load and barfs up an error code about Prep. Since this is indeed a CHRP machine, that's legitimate. Now, if anyone has a clue where this image came from, I would be very happy. Thanks, -- David N. Welton(Circa mea pectora [EMAIL PROTECTED])multa sunt suspiria http://www.efn.org/~davidw (de tua pulchritudine debian.org + prosa.it )que me ledunt misere
Re: RS6000
So, I actually got the machine to boot (thanks to images provided by the guys at Yellow Dog Linux) and install Y.D. Linux (which is what we are officially supporting). Is there a good way to install by just taking a tarball and expanding it anywhere? Also, any hints on booting from the HD on this thing would be appreciated. Thanks, -- David N. Welton(Circa mea pectora [EMAIL PROTECTED])multa sunt suspiria http://www.efn.org/~davidw (de tua pulchritudine debian.org + prosa.it )que me ledunt misere
Re: RS/6000
On Fri, Sep 10, 1999 at 06:38:01PM -0300, Douglas S. Vieira wrote: > The problem is that the machine doesn't seem to recognize the zImage > floppy as a valid boot disk. Multiple floppies have been tried, so > it's most likely not the disks themselves. There is something tricky that isn't readily obvious: you need to put the image on a DOS floppy, or at least that's how I got the F50 I'm working on up. Put it on the floppy as a file called ZIMAGE or something, then from the OF, do: boot floppy:,\ZIMAGE Good luck, -- David N. Welton(Circa mea pectora [EMAIL PROTECTED])multa sunt suspiria http://www.efn.org/~davidw (de tua pulchritudine debian.org + prosa.it )que me ledunt misere
Re: RS/6000
On Fri, Sep 10, 1999 at 07:17:46PM -0300, Douglas S. Vieira wrote: > David Welton writes: > > On Fri, Sep 10, 1999 at 06:38:01PM -0300, Douglas S. Vieira wrote: > > > > > The problem is that the machine doesn't seem to recognize the zImage > > > floppy as a valid boot disk. Multiple floppies have been tried, so > > > it's most likely not the disks themselves. > > > > There is something tricky that isn't readily obvious: you need to put > > the image on a DOS floppy, or at least that's how I got the F50 I'm > > working on up. Put it on the floppy as a file called ZIMAGE or > > something, then from the OF, do: boot floppy:,\ZIMAGE > > I followed instructions using dd command to create boot image from > ftp://ftp.linuxppc.org/users/gdt/zImage-2.2.10 and ramdisk image from > ftp://ftp.linuxppc.org/users/gdt/ramdisk_image.gz. Try doing what I said. Don't use dd, but create a *DOS* floppy disk and *cp* the files there. I have no idea if this is right for your machine but like I said, it did work for me! > When I put disk boot image and turn on IBM RS/6000 I force floppy boot > using F5 key, but nothing happened. You need to get into Open Firmware. Read your manual for how to do that. Ciao, -- David N. Welton(Circa mea pectora [EMAIL PROTECTED])multa sunt suspiria http://www.efn.org/~davidw (de tua pulchritudine debian.org + prosa.it )que me ledunt misere
Kernel hacking
So I've been taking some random stabs at the kernel running on this thing (the RS6000), and I'm wondering what lists I should be on to get informed about what the status of things is, what is happening, etc.. I noticed, for instance, that 2.3.18 doesn't compile out of the box. Thanks, -- David N. Welton(Circa mea pectora [EMAIL PROTECTED])multa sunt suspiria http://www.efn.org/~davidw (de tua pulchritudine debian.org + prosa.it )que me ledunt misere
Re: RS/6000
On Mon, Sep 13, 1999 at 02:58:07PM -0600, Cort Dougan wrote: > I think this machine is a prep, not a chrp so you would need to dd the > prep image onto the floppy. What kernel were you trying? I've never tried > the system on one of these machines. > } > The problem is that the machine doesn't seem to recognize the zImage > } > floppy as a valid boot disk. Multiple floppies have been tried, so > } > it's most likely not the disks themselves. > } There is something tricky that isn't readily obvious: you need to put > } the image on a DOS floppy, or at least that's how I got the F50 I'm > } working on up. Put it on the floppy as a file called ZIMAGE or > } something, then from the OF, do: boot floppy:,\ZIMAGE Err, "my" (Linuxcare's) machine is a CHRP, and it boots from the DOS file ZIMAGE, I think the other machine is an F30? But it's not mine... -- David N. Welton(Circa mea pectora [EMAIL PROTECTED])multa sunt suspiria http://www.efn.org/~davidw (de tua pulchritudine debian.org + prosa.it )que me ledunt misere
Re: console-apt
On Tue, Sep 14, 1999 at 03:35:07PM -0400, Josh Huber wrote: > Daniel Jacobowitz writes: > > Chris, any thoughts on a non-experimental upload of binutils in the > > near future? Powerpc is somewhat broken at present. As is ARM. > Yes, speaking of which, emacs20 is still broken at the moment, > because of a dependancy on liblockfile0, and liblockfile1 is the > version that appears to be available... Rob Browning appears to be MIA. See my post on -devel regarding emacs yesterday. We'll give him a week or so and then I guess coordinate an NMU. Ciao, -- David N. Welton(Circa mea pectora [EMAIL PROTECTED])multa sunt suspiria http://www.efn.org/~davidw (de tua pulchritudine debian.org + prosa.it )que me ledunt misere
Re: RS/6000
Ok, I am stumped. I have been trying to build an SMP kernel for my F50, and have hit a wall. It is stopping somewhere after prom_init (I added a prom_print that shows it is exiting this), and before printing anything else. It is still in OF. From what I can see in the code, after prom_init, it is back into head.S, and at that point, I'm a bit stumped - I don't know a lot about assembly, let alone PPC (although I hope to get a book on the PPC instruction set soon), and it seems rather difficult to even call something like prom_print (which is how I have been 'debugging'). I'll ask again - is there any kind of ppc-kernel list that would be an appropriate place for questions like this? Thanks, -- David N. Welton(Circa mea pectora [EMAIL PROTECTED])multa sunt suspiria http://www.efn.org/~davidw (de tua pulchritudine debian.org + prosa.it )que me ledunt misere
Re: RS/6000
Hmmm, so, I am not having much luck installing Debian. I'd just like to get a big tarball of the base system, and config it myself. Would anybody have a spare partition they could do that on? I just need enough to chroot it or boot it and start going on my own, apt-getting things, etc.. Thanks, -- David N. Welton(Circa mea pectora [EMAIL PROTECTED])multa sunt suspiria http://www.efn.org/~davidw (de tua pulchritudine debian.org + prosa.it )que me ledunt misere
PPC instructions
So, today my book arrived on the PPC instruction set, from Motorola (MPCFPE32B/AD Rev. 1), and it makes no mention of the 'li' and 'mr' instructions that I see in the kernel sources. What is the story with this - just a failure to note something in the docs, or...? Thanks, -- David N. Welton(Circa mea pectora [EMAIL PROTECTED])multa sunt suspiria http://www.efn.org/~davidw (de tua pulchritudine debian.org + prosa.it )que me ledunt misere
Unable to fsync updated status of 'xxxxxx': Input/output error
Any idea why I might be getting this error from dpkg when trying to install packages? It seems to be sort of random... I straced it and it is indeed fsync failing. This is on an unstable system that was brute force installed (uncompress base*.tgz). I have a feeling that this is the cause of the problem but I'm not sure where I might have gone astray, or which config file I might have missed... Thanks, -- David N. Welton(Circa mea pectora [EMAIL PROTECTED])multa sunt suspiria http://www.efn.org/~davidw (de tua pulchritudine debian.org + prosa.it )que me ledunt misere
Re: Unable to fsync updated status of 'xxxxxx': Input/output error
On Tue, Oct 26, 1999 at 10:56:30PM -0700, Joel Klecker wrote: > At 18:34 -0500 1999-10-26, David Welton wrote: > >Any idea why I might be getting this error from dpkg when trying to > >install packages? It seems to be sort of random... > > > >I straced it and it is indeed fsync failing. > generic 2.3 kernel bug, I thought it was fixed by now. Well, the only kernel that I can get to boot this machine is a 2.3.10 image provided by yellow dog linux. Thanks, though, I was completely stumped... Ciao, -- David N. Welton(Circa mea pectora [EMAIL PROTECTED])multa sunt suspiria http://www.efn.org/~davidw (de tua pulchritudine debian.org + prosa.it )que me ledunt misere
Re: PowerMac kernels with GCC 2.95.1
On Wed, Nov 03, 1999 at 08:35:26AM +0100, Hartmut Koptein wrote: > > another data point: chrp appears to have problems with the new gcc. > No, it isn't gcc2.95, it is the kernel, the 2.2.x one. 2.3.x will > boot, but the curent kernel versions are so buggy with so many > compile errors :-(( > > using franz sirl's gcc 2.95.2 (0h), 2.2.12 (specifically, cort's 19990903 > > snapshot) fails to boot on the ibm f50 i'm using. Do you have any images you would be willing to share that *do* boot? I'm not sure who wrote the original mail... I have a 2.3... 5? I think, that does work, from the guys at Yellow Dog. > f50 is chrp, good to know. Yep. I've got one too. > > it gets stuck after printing "instantiating rtas... done" but before it > > manages to initialize the framebuffer. Yes, it exits prom_init, and then dies somewhere. Where, precisely, i have no idea. > Yes, something from OF -> linux is broken. Cort mentioned that, but then said he had something that would work? He gave me a couple of pointers to images, but they are too big for the floppies I have to use to boot. Ciao, -- David N. Welton(Circa mea pectora [EMAIL PROTECTED])multa sunt suspiria http://www.efn.org/~davidw (de tua pulchritudine debian.org + prosa.it )que me ledunt misere
pmac-fdisk required?
Any reason why this is required? I can't see using it on my RS6K. pmac-fdisk - Apple disk partition manipulation tool for PowerPC The fdisk utilities from the MkLinux project, adopted for Linux/ppc. Pmac-fdisk allows you to create and edit the partition table of a disk. It supports the PC partition format as used on PowerPC. It is an interactive tool similar to PC fdisk. Ciao, -- David N. Welton(Circa mea pectora [EMAIL PROTECTED])multa sunt suspiria http://www.efn.org/~davidw (de tua pulchritudine debian.org + prosa.it )que me ledunt misere
RS6K
Ok, progress... I finally managed to get it netbooting (I'd never done this before with any machine, so had I messed a few things up). I used the kernels zImage.chrp and zImage.chrp.smp in ftp.ppc.kernel.org:/pub/linuxppc/kernel-images/v2.2.13-991019/ The non smp one barfs with: Unable to load interpreter right about where it looks like it ought to be loading init. The smp one barfs with: _spin_lock(c01cbb70) CPU#0 NIP c0013c3c holder: cpu 1 pc C002B3BC no cont in shutdown! 2 0 2 0 Where the 2's and 0's take the place of X in CPU#X. It keeps doing this... So... it gets stuck in a spin lock on the floppy?:-/ Ciao, -- David N. Welton(Circa mea pectora [EMAIL PROTECTED])multa sunt suspiria http://www.efn.org/~davidw (de tua pulchritudine debian.org + prosa.it )que me ledunt misere
Re: RS6K
On Wed, Nov 10, 1999 at 04:06:18PM -0700, Cort Dougan wrote: > Try the 99-10-15 drop. It should work better. Starts looping when loading "SCSI SCRIPTS": sym53c875-2: restart (scsi reset). scsi: aborting command due to timeout: pid 68, scsi2, channel 0 id 8, lun 0, Read (6) 00 00 00 02 02 and stuff like that. So, no go. Where can I get the sources and configs used to build these kernels? I would like to try my hand at making something work. In the kernel-sources dir, the sources appear to not match up with what is in -images. Thanks, -- David N. Welton(Circa mea pectora [EMAIL PROTECTED])multa sunt suspiria http://www.efn.org/~davidw (de tua pulchritudine debian.org + prosa.it )que me ledunt misere
Re: RS6K
On Wed, Nov 10, 1999 at 05:08:08PM -0700, Cort Dougan wrote: > Ack! I don't get this with that drop on the F50 I have. Hmm:-/ > Grab the latest us.kernel.org (2.2.14-pre4) and do a make > common_config and you'll have the .config for 'em (just add smp in > xconfig). Tried a number of configurations. Doesn't even get out of the OF black on white screen. For my own knowledge, do you have any idea what the difference might be between kernels that do break out of the OF screen and those that don't? I would love to compare my .config with the those used to build the stuff in kernel-images, but there are no sources there that appear relevant. BTW, any recommendations on a good kernel for an iMac? I procured one that will, hopefully, become a kernel factory for the RS6K, so I don't have to reboot each time I have to recompile a kernel. Ciao, -- David N. Welton(Circa mea pectora [EMAIL PROTECTED])multa sunt suspiria http://www.efn.org/~davidw (de tua pulchritudine debian.org + prosa.it )que me ledunt misere
iMac kernel?
Looking for a kernel image to netboot an iMac with... Any suggestions? Eventually, I'd like to run the whole thing off of a netboot (ie, NFS mounted root), so that I can get rid of the OS from Cupertino. Thanks, -- David N. Welton(Circa mea pectora [EMAIL PROTECTED])multa sunt suspiria http://www.efn.org/~davidw (de tua pulchritudine debian.org + prosa.it )que me ledunt misere
Re: iMac kernel?
On Mon, Nov 15, 1999 at 09:12:18PM -0900, Ethan Benson wrote: > On 15/11/99 David Welton wrote: > >Looking for a kernel image to netboot an iMac with... > i don't think there is one, iMac (and any colored mac) OF requires a > header in the elf note section, without which OF will barf, the > NetBSD kernel is OF bootable so all it really would take is figuring > out what the note needs to have and add one to a linux kernel... Interesting... Well, then, I *still* need a kernel to try. Does anyone have a standard config for an iMac with a recent kernel? > anyone want to add ext2fs support to poof (Prisoner Of OpenFirmware) > ? it will apparently boot linux kernels from OF but only if they > are on a OF readable partition, yuk... I don't mind using an HFS partition or something, just as long as there is no MacOS on it. Thanks, -- David N. Welton -+- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -+- http://www.efn.org/~davidw
gcc 2.95.2 vs 2.91
So, I was talking with Cort regarding my ongoing RS6K troubles, and he mentioned that trying an older compiler might help. I did indeed have a better time of getting a v2.2.14-preX going with the 2.91 on my yellow dog partition. If we don't have a compiler that can generate good code for kernels, this is bad... Ideas? -- David N. Welton -+- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -+- http://www.efn.org/~davidw
Re: gcc 2.95.2 vs 2.91
On Tue, Nov 30, 1999 at 09:32:39AM +0100, VALETTE Eric wrote: > There were two serious bugs in gcc-2.95.1 for PPC. I found them > while working on RTEMS on MCP750 (PowerPC Compaq PCI borad where I > also ported linux). I reported them and they are now fixed in > gcc-2.95.2. One was fixed within a day even if it took me a week to > localize the bug. The code generated by gcc-2.95.2 on PPC is much > more compac and efficient than with egcs 1.1.2... How did you find them? My problem is this: Good kernels get into linux a bit before crashing. Bad kernels lock up just after the initializing rta's thing in OF. How do I track down what is causing that? Ciao, -- David N. Welton -+- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -+- http://www.efn.org/~davidw
Re: gcc 2.95.2 vs 2.91
On Tue, Nov 30, 1999 at 04:38:06AM -0500, Justin McKillican wrote: > _any_ kernels? i just compiled 2.2.13 on gccf 2.95.1 and 2.95.2. I haven't had problems on x86, but I have had very few kernels work on the ppc box. Ciao, -- David N. Welton -+- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -+- http://www.efn.org/~davidw
Re: about PowerPc - offtopic
On Mon, Jan 10, 2000 at 05:17:02AM -0600, Shiryu wrote: > I have powerbook 333Mhz, and it runs like 1/2 of the speed of my PII > 400 Mhz, wasnt G3 supose to be much faster? ( I tested compilations > on Debian, using time command). Compiling is not a very good way of benchmarking a processor - there are too many factors involved... Ciao, -- David N. Welton -+- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -+- http://www.efn.org/~davidw
Usable state?
Hi guys, I wanted to ask if you think that it is possible to install and use debian-ppc. A co-worker here at cks wants to try linux, and the standard linuxppc is crapping out on boot, so I thought that I might as well give the Debian port a shot, if it is in any sort of usable state. Thanks, -- David Welton http://www.efn.org/~davidw Debian GNU/Linux - www.debian.org
