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Re: Bug#603536: Linux on POWER Bootable ISO



Official Debian PowerPC install iso images wont boot on my two machines
because IBM OpenFirmware on IBM RS/6000 44P Model 170 and IBM SLOF
firmware on YDL PowerStation are not able to read files from isofs.

Unofficial Debian Install CD created with --iso-level 4 mkisofs option
boots fine on both machines.

Linux on POWER Bootable ISO HOWTO [1] instruction says:
> 
> The mkisofs man page lists all the options that can be passed on 
> the command line, here is a simple set of options that will
> be enough to produce a bootable CD.
> 
>    mkisofs -r -U -chrp-boot -o <image.iso> <base_directory>
>
> You should now have a bootable ISO image that you can boot on a Linux on POWER system.


Other linux distributions targeting IBM POWER machines create their
PowerPC install CD images using -U option. The -U option "Allows
'Untranslated" filenames, completely violating the iso9660 standards,"
so it is probably better to go for --iso-level 4 as it produces
ISO-9660:1999 compliant CD/DVD images, and as far as I can see works
fine on Macs and IBM machines.

Could you, please, apply the patch attached to bug report #603536 to
create proper bootable .iso for Power machines, and make sure Squeeze
PowerPC iso images are produced with the same option.

Thanks,

Milan


[1] http://penguinppc.org/ppc64/power-bootable-iso/

[Appendix]

Here is how official Debian install CD files look from IBM
OpenFirmware's point of view:

0 > dir cdrom
     <DIR>  12-15-2010 09:11:19 .
     <DIR>  12-15-2010 09:11:19 ..
     <DIR>  12-15-2010 09:10:48 CSS
         0  12-15-2010 09:11:19 DEBIAN
     <DIR>  12-15-2010 09:10:48 DISTS
     <DIR>  12-15-2010 09:10:47 DOC
     <DIR>  12-15-2010 09:10:49 ETC
     <DIR>  12-15-2010 09:10:50 FIRMWARE
     <DIR>  12-15-2010 09:10:49 INSTALL
     46888  12-15-2010 09:11:19 MD5SUM.TXT
     <DIR>  12-15-2010 09:10:48 PICS
     <DIR>  12-15-2010 09:10:49 POOL
     <DIR>  12-15-2010 09:10:49 PPC
      8992  12-15-2010 09:11:19 README.HTML
       375  12-15-2010 09:10:49 README.SOURCE
      5564  12-15-2010 09:11:19 README.TXT
    141804  12-15-2010 01:56:06 README_MIRRORS.HTML
     76266  12-15-2010 01:56:06 README_MIRRORS.TXT
     <DIR>  12-15-2010 09:11:19 _DISK
 ok


Here is how they look on an unofficial Debian install CD created with
--iso-level 4 mkisofs option:

0 > dir cdrom
     <DIR>  12-11-2010 20:57:25 .
     <DIR>  12-11-2010 20:57:25 ..
     <DIR>  12-11-2010 20:57:25 .disk
      8962  12-11-2010 20:57:25 README.html
    141274  11-20-2010 08:52:23 README.mirrors.html
     76044  11-20-2010 08:52:23 README.mirrors.txt
       306  12-11-2010 20:55:38 README.source
      5544  12-11-2010 20:57:25 README.txt
     <DIR>  12-11-2010 20:55:33 css
         0  12-11-2010 20:57:25 debian
     <DIR>  12-11-2010 20:55:33 dists
     <DIR>  12-11-2010 20:55:32 doc
     <DIR>  12-11-2010 20:55:38 etc
     <DIR>  12-11-2010 20:55:49 firmware
     <DIR>  12-11-2010 20:55:38 install
     48176  12-11-2010 20:57:25 md5sum.txt
     <DIR>  12-11-2010 20:55:33 pics
     <DIR>  12-11-2010 20:55:39 pool
     <DIR>  12-11-2010 20:55:38 ppc
 ok


Here is how an Official IBM AIX install CD looks from the IBM
OpenFirmware point of view:

0 > dir cdrom
     <DIR>  09-23-2002 11:44:52 .
     <DIR>  09-23-2002 11:44:52 ..
        42  09-23-2002 11:44:52 .Version
     <DIR>  09-23-2002 11:40:19 5100-03
        16  09-23-2002 11:40:19 OSLEVEL
     <DIR>  09-23-2002 11:43:00 RPMS
     10445  09-23-2002 11:40:19 bosinst.data
     12788  09-23-2002 11:40:19 image.data
     <DIR>  09-23-2002 11:44:25 installp
     <DIR>  09-23-2002 11:40:20 ppc
     <DIR>  09-23-2002 11:40:22 root
     <DIR>  09-23-2002 11:41:16 usr
 ok

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