Hello Mark,
Am Dienstag, den 17.01.2012, 14:52 +0000 schrieb Mark Benson:
> On 17 Jan 2012, at 14:24, Benedikt Wegmann <benedikt.wegmann@gwdg.de> wrote:
>
> > a while ago I succeeded in installing Debian 6.0.3 (ppc64) on an IBM
> > Power740 via the netinstall image.
> > During the setup process it was necessary to update the yaboot
> > bootloader and manually change its configuration.
> > Once installed however it runs stable and fast, very fast actually.
> > Good luck!
>
> Thanks. I tried to follow your steps but ned to clarify a few things:
>
> First, I need to partition 7 MB for PReP and 100MB for a ext3 /boot partition.
Yes, the size of the /boot partition is up to you. If there is a
possibility that you need to have several kernel versions installed,
perhaps compiled them your self, or if you have a generous amount of
disk space available, make that twice as much.
The PReP partition has upper and lower size limits which I don't recall.
7MB however is well within the limits and plenty for the boot loader.
> Second, when the install fails to install yaboot I need to chroot to /target, wget a new yaboot (any particular version works better?) and use dpkg -I to install it.
Switch out of the installation to a shell *before* the setup attempts to
install yaboot.
I have yaboot version 1.3.16-4 installed
(http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/y/yaboot/). Install it with dpkg
-i yaboot_1.3.16-4_powerpc.deb
Exit the chroot and shell with "exit" (x2) so that you are back in the
regular setup. Continue installation with the item "install
bootloader" (or similar), where you left of.
Then, at the final step that concludes the setup ("finish the
installation") switch back to the main menu again and into a shell. Now
edit the yaboot.conf as described (change the paths if you don't use
LVM, although I can recommend it for its flexibility together with an
online resizing file system like ext4). Exit the shell with "exit" again
back into the setup to finish the installation cleanly.
>
> When it is installed, I need to run 'ybin' to install it to the PReP partition and also setup a /etc/yaboot.conf.
>
> I then have to edit the yaboot.conf as you describe and run 'ybin' *again*.
>
> Is that correct? I have come over from x86 and have not previously run Linux on IBM/POWER so am not familiar with yaboot at all.
I have never heard of yaboot previously either. ;)
My understanding is that the setup dumps a lot of files in the future
root file system and towards the end changeroots into it to install
yaboot. What we do is to update yaboot behind the back of setup so that
it will install a more recent (and working!) one than the one it
originally ships with.
And since autodetecting the correct settings for yaboot.conf largely
fails on IBM hardware we intervene once more just before booting the new
system. If I remember correctly the IBM bios tries to load the contents
of the first PReP partition on the first hard disk as the boot loader
(which is yaboot) which in turn reads its configuration and commences
booting the kernel from /boot.
Once more thing I just noticed: if booting still fails, copy your
yaboot.conf also to /boot/etc/yaboot.conf (!) in case the root
filesystem is not available during the phase of booting when yaboot
reads its configuration. Here is my /boot:
/boot/:
total 25302
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2340592 Jan 11 20:09 System.map-2.6.32-5-powerpc64
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 93214 Jan 11 20:09 config-2.6.32-5-powerpc64
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Sep 13 09:27 etc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 29 Sep 13 09:11 initrd.img -> initrd.img-2.6.32-5-powerpc64
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 11973430 Jan 16 06:27 initrd.img-2.6.32-5-powerpc64
drwx------ 2 root root 12288 Sep 13 09:05 lost+found
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 26 Sep 13 09:11 vmlinux -> vmlinux-2.6.32-5-powerpc64
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 11381754 Jan 11 20:08 vmlinux-2.6.32-5-powerpc64
/boot/etc:
total 1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 654 Sep 13 09:27 yaboot.conf
Regards,
Benedikt
>
> Thanks.
>
> --
> Mark Benson
>
> http://markbenson.org/blog
> http://twitter.com/MDBenson
--
Benedikt Wegmann
benedikt.wegmann@gwdg.de
+49 (0)551 201-1870
Jabber/XMPP: bwegman1@jabber.gwdg.de
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