SX164 installation
Hi everyone,
I just switched from RH4.2 to Debian (which I was dearly
missing, I've had 1.3 and now 2.0 on an Intel box) on my
SX164, and I'd like to share my experience with the list.
So, I first tried a fresh install using Loic's disks from
http://lhpca.univ-lyon1.fr/axp/debian.html
Well, that didn't work. As noted by somebody else on this
list, the resc disk boots the kernel just fine, but then
asks for the root disk and after pressing enter nothing
happens until one gets fd0 timeout.
Ok, second try. I copied the RH kernel 2.0.30 (sorry!) to
the resc disk and this time it worked! So I got into the
installation program. I have a CD-R which I got from LSL to
take the .debs from, and of course I tried to use that
one. Problem is, they didn't put the base system and the
resc, boot and drv disk images on the CD-R so the
installation program wouldn't go ahead.
Uhmmm... third try. This time I booted into the small RH
partition, copied a base tarball I had prevously downloaded
(when Loic disks weren't around) into the Debian root,
untarred, configured a few network things, rebooted into
Debian root, made /usr /var/ and /home partitions and ran
dselect. I should probably mention somebody else described
this approach on this list a while ago. Also, MILO was
already on the hard drive from the original RH installation.
Now I hear you asking, why didn't you go ahead in the fresh
install using, say, the base floppies? Well, I don't know,
it didn't occur to me. I suppose this things happen at
2:00am.
Ok, to go back to what happened, at that point verything
went more or less smoothly. I had to
dpkg --ignore-depends=libc6
a few things, but this is apparently well known. Other
things in no apparent order are as follows:
o there is something wrong in the apache installation and it
dies when I try to start it manually or from the boot
scripts. I haven't had time to look into __what__ is
wrong, though.
o compiled a few small test C and C++ programs, and egcs
seems to be OK. A project of mine is to port the CERNLIB
to this machine. I'm not a Fortran programmer, but my wife
does some number crunching, and I'm sure it will be
interesting to see how this little beast does.
o TeX/LaTeX is fine. Xdvi, on the other hand, dies
spectacularly when I click in its window to zoom, kills
the Xserver which doesn't restart, and the machine is
completely locked: no ctrl-alt-bksp, virtual consoles,
nothing. I can only reset, at that point. Unfortunately, I
don't have any other machine lying around, so I can't tell
whether or not the Alpha is completely dead. Oh, the video
card is a Matrox Millennium II, with XF86_SVGA.
o gv segfaults, ghostview is fine, instead.
o ppp configuration was a breeze.
o emacs is ok, both 19 and 20. Xemacs, I have two packages
wich call themselves support binaries and/or libraries (I
can't remember and right now I'm away from the Alpha) but
no binary. Can some helpful soul recap how's the situation
with Xemacs? I did have a look at the list archive, but I
don't quite get the picture. Do I have to compile it
myself?
o I'm still going with the RH Kernel. I discovered that the
Kernel that comes with the resc disk fails to detect the
PS/2 mouse. So, as you can imagine, no gpm, no X. Might
this be related for some obscure (to me) reason to the
failure to load the ramdisk I and others observed?
I'm obviously living in the future: 2018 :-) I guess one
can look at this as a test for the Y2K problem, but I'd
like to come back. You see, time-travel means a lot of
nasty paradoxes... I understand I have to recompile a
kernel to get proper support for /dev/rtc. The question to
the experts, is: can I take a source package, say 2.0.33
or 2.0.34 and go ahead and do it or do I have to patch it?
I discovered my ideas are quite confused.
Ok, that's it, more or less. I cannot end this without
praising the efforts of all those who made Debian on the
Alpha possible. It's so much better than RH (but know that
already, right?), and I'm so happy to be using Debian
again.
Ciao,
Ettore
--
Ettore Aldrovandi -- SISSA/International School for Advanced Studies
Via Beirut 2/4, I-34013 Trieste, Italy
ph: [+] 39 0403787445 -- fax:[+] 39 0403787528
ettore@valis.fm.sissa.it aldrovan@sissa.it http://www.sissa.it/~aldrovan
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