Re: linux for HP 9000 300/400 series
Rodney Schuler wrote:
>
>
> I got a mostly complete set of HP manuals along with my 3 HP9000/425t
> machines. The OS installation manual says that you can install a new OS on
> a bare empty machine from tape, from CD, or over the network, and gives
> instructions on how to do it for HP-UX.
>
The 4xx series are actually Apollo boxes. Quite a bit different from
the 3xx series.
> The NetBSD guys seem to think that the net boot process is the easiest.
> They were the first outside of HP to be able to boot an HP9000. They used
> the over the network method. The process is supposed to go something like
> this:
>
> 1) Set up another computer to be the boot server.
> 1a) This machine needs to be running the rbootd daemon.
> 1b) The rboot protocol is pure ethernet - no IP stuff.
> 1c) The boot server needs to be on the same ethernet as the HP9000 to be
> booted up (no gateways between)
>
> 2) Start the HP 9000.
> 2a) Hold down the space bar on the keyboard when you turn it on. Some
> models you may have to also press a button on the front or back panel.
> 2b) Let up on the space bar when 'Waiting System Selection' appears at
> bottom of screen.
> 2c) Wait for the HP 9000 to `see' the boot server - this may take 30-40
> seconds or more.
> 24) Pick your install source (the boot server) from the menu that appears.
> It will usually be numbered I1 on a bare empty machine booting over the net.
> (three keystrokes 'I' '1' 'enter')
>
> 3) Boot.
> 3a) This may take several minutes with no apparent activity.
> 3b) Hopefully whatever you booted into has enough hooks (nfs, ftp, a shell,
> etc) to get you the rest of the way through installation.
>
Not sure if this will work on the 3xx as it has a different PROM than
the 4xx. I may do some exploring this weekend.
> Peter Maydell (pmaydell@chiark.greenend.org.uk) claims to have a working
> linux rbootd (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~pmaydell/hp/index.html).
> >From reading the page it sounds like his code does some powerful ethernet
> voodoo. Just what the witch doctor ordered :)
>
> I hope all that helps to get you booted. Let me know how it goes. I will
> not be able to attempt my own net boot for a while - I don't have any other
> computer that uses coax (thinnet) that can act as a boot server :(
>
I've already got coax linked into my network for an old Mac and and old
486 PC. In fact I use coax as the backbone for linking my hubs. Still
at 10MB for my network.
> Now let me in on your kernel building secrets:) Exactly what do you put
> into or exclude from your kernels? Do you have a bootloader (lilo, silo,
> grub, etc) ready to go? I have not seen any information on what needs to be
> done to be able to boot from the hard disk. Maybe we should save disks that
> boot HP-UX, so that we can reverse engineer the boot records.
>
I don't remember now, but when I built this about 5 weeks ago I remember
there were selections for HP300.
> If you have any more questions please ask me. Like I said I have a
> reasonably complete set of HP manuals. You may also wish to read the NetBSD
> port site http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/hp300/, Peter Maydell's site
> http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~pmaydell/, or Phil Blundell's site
> http://www.tazenda.demon.co.uk/phil/linux-hp/
>
Thanks for the links.
> Let's keep this conversation on the debian-68k list. That way it is
> archived, and when somebody else finds one of these machines, they can do a
> search and find us.
>
> -Rodney
--
Ray Knight
audilvr@speakeasy.org
Reply to: