Re: Installing Debian on Amiga

[stephen <vk3heg@iinet.net.au>]

On Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:28 am, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:

> > > > I've been looking through the first cd to install linux, and can't
> > > > find the installer. I have looked through the insall instructions for
> > > > the m68k on the debian website and got lost/confused.
> > >
> > > You should find amiboot in /install/tools/amiga/ along with some
> > > StartInstall scripts which depend on your graphics card. In theory
> > > clicking one of these should kick everything off.
> >
> > My A1200 is standard, and has just the normal amiga video system.
> > Can I still install debian onto the machine?
> >
> > I had a look at those files. They wont run etc when I click on them.
> > I'm running 3.1 roms, with 3.9 os, using the cdrom driver that comes with
> > 3.1/3.9. All the files are not in long file name format, and are 8.3.
> > I had a look at one of them and ran it's command by hand. The kernal goes
> > through it's startup and then I get a black screen with the monitor being
> > over driven. (it's a standard 1084s)
>
> On AGA (which your A1200 has) amifb defaults to a VGA mode, which is not
> compatible with your A1084. You can override this by adding e.g.
> `video=pal' to the kernel command line.

Thanks for all the idea's to get linux installed on my Amiga 1200. I have had 
some success.

One problem I had was the the cdrom driver that comes with os3.9 was only 
seeing the files on the cdrom as 8.3 format. I used amicdfs from aminet and 
was able to get longfile names (yah).

I had a chance to playaround with the amiboot options over the weekend.
Had to copy a few files to the hd (kernel, initrd, startinstall, amiboot). 
then I tryed out a few options. I was finally able to get into a working 
video mode (video=amifb:pal) and then the install started.

I have now managed to get linux installed (very slow). Left it at the 
validating packages stage last night and then went to bed (it took a very 
long time just to get to 5%). When I woke up this morning, and turned on the 
monitor the install was about 95-99% so I finished that off and turned the 
Amiga off (going to work got in the way).

I've got it going through it's first bootup (very slow) this evening, after 
using amiboot with the install part left off the command line.


-- 
Stephen - vk3heg