Re: helping out(reply to newsgroup posting)
> > Sorry to burst your bubble here. Up to this point, not much work has
> > been done on the 2.2 boot-floppies kit for m68k.
>
> what exactly needs to be done? I'm still struggling with some aspects of
> getting debian working(i.e. install modules and kernels stage due to lack
> of ms-dos support) I've been fooling around with various kernels and
> such...anyway not the point of this post.
What needs to be done ... here's a short laundry list of items:
First 'Build boot-floppies, a simple recipe in 3 steps' ...
1) - find a kernel version and config, version 2.2.10 or later, that works
acceptable for installation on the biggest number of hardware
configurations. -> massive testing, preferably together with alpha version
of boot-floppies which needs to be built.
2) - build a Debian kernel image and kernel patch package for this kernel
config.
(above items foreach (amiga atari mac *vme) of course)
3) - build the boot-floppies set: one base2_2.tgz for all, plus
resc1440.bin/drv1440.bin/root.bin separate for each subarch. resc1440.bin
and drv1440.bin require the kernel-image package so that needs to be built
first.
- do test installs, fix bugs (repeat from 1) or 3) until perfect or
release date)
Required for 1) and 2): kernel source, (cross-)compile environment, Debian
package built utils. For testing on Mac, there's been a ramdisk etc. kit
on David Huggins-Daines' site last year, maybe someone kept a copy?
Otherwise, use the slink ramdisk, mind the console #2 trick, rename
base2_2.tgz (on David's site as well) to base2_1.tgz, get creative with
eventual glitches due to differences between the 2.1 and 2.2 base
contents.
Required for 3): mirror of Debian unstable/frozen on a local disk or NFS
(or perhaps CD), boot-floppies source (from frozen), disk space to
build boot-floppies plus assembly of the base system which will itself
take up around 30 MB or so, plus m68k-support.tar.gz from the
disks-m68k/source directory on the mirror. Unpack that archive in the
boot-floppies root directory. At least part of the boot-floppies build
needs root privileges (use dpkg-buildpackage -rsudo if you have sudo
installed). A 68040@33MHz is sufficient for this, faster is better.
Post the results on some anonymous FTP site for others to test if you are
not a registered Debian developer (in that case you should just upload the
stuff as usual).
Misc items to take care of:
talk graef@zirkon.biophys.uni-duesseldorf.de
- convert the Penguin 10 .sit archive into StuffIt 1.5 format
- create binhex encoded, macbinary encoded versions of the Penguin booter
and the Penguin Preferences file, along with other misc. files Penguin
might need to run. The Preferences file should be created with safe
defaults for kernel options and booter settings (the mac5380 and mac58c9x
options are probably the most critical).
> what can I do to help with the boot floppies? If it is simply busy-work(as
> defined by the typical user not developer) I'll be happy to do it if
> possible
See above. See if it builds straight from source. Keep logs of the build
runs (bash: make > make-bf.out 2>&1) and check them for errors. If you
can't make sense of the errors, post the relevant sections here, or on
some web page. Repeat until it builds.
> >It would
> > be extremely nice to have 'real' documentation this time, written from a
> > newbie user point of view. If you want a Debian 2.2 release for m68k,
> > now's the time to act. Contact debian-68k@lists.debian.org if you're
> > interested.
>
>
> I'm a newbie, but perhaps still too much of a newbie, i'll be happy to
> contribute tho.
There's no such thing as 'too much of a newbie' for writing introductory
documentation.
Michael
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