Re: amiga 'native OS' install
Adam Di Carlo wrote:
>
> Well you'll be pleased to know I've added all the info from Frank's
> amiga install manual and some of your notes as well, except the
> anti-lilo stuff, which is too much for me tonight. So, amiga at least
> should be good up until the 'configure networking' step (where I
> collapsed from exhaustion). I'd love for an Amiga use to critique up
> until that point. Again,
> <URL:http://www.debian.org/~aph/boot-floppies/m68k/install.html>.
> That should pick up tonights rev in about 2 hours.
Some more comments on the text:
2.5: you're going to have a hard time finding any vendor selling m68k
Amigas, Ataris or Macs. If you're lucky you may find them second
hand. In this context, mentioning vendors that ship Debian pre-installed on
m68k machines is an Intelsim and can be deleted without losing any
information for the user.
2.5.1: Apple has granted programming information on _none_ of the components
in their m68k machines. Some things are off-the-shelf components, such as
serial and SCSI controllers or Ethernet chips. For these cases, only the
system integration needs to be figured out (where, which interrupt).
Other components, including the ADB controller for keyboard and mouse
interface, floppy controller and all acceleration and CLUT manipulation of
the video hardware, are entirely undocumented. The infamous example is the
proprietary IOP I/O processor in a few models. You could say, without being
unfair: 'Another example is the whole Apple Macintosh series of computers.
No documentation describing programming the Macintosh hardware has been
released
by Apple, so a lot of system components of functions cannot be supported
because nobody could figure out the necessary details yet.'
Apple doesn't seem to be interested in supporting people that continue to
use
the m68k Macs instead of upgrading to PowerPC Macs. But that's my private
opinion. Apple was always very anal about their secretiveness, and flooding
Steve Jobs with e-mail isn't going to be productive. The whole paragraph
boils down to apologizing for lack of support without any real option for
the
users to change the vendor's point of view. I'd drop it, or rephrase it to
advise user to insist on Linux support when they buy new add-on components
(should such ever become available).
Such add-ons might include processor upgrade cards for the Atari Falcon,
graphics
cards for Amiga and Atari, and network cards. The Amiga side seems have
learned
the lesson, the Mac side never will, and the Falcon 040 upgrade is another
pathetic case of closed hardware.
In summary, I don't see the need to name the bad guys, and the simple hint
'ask
for Linux support when shopping for hardware' should be enough.
3.1: Add 'if you repartition the boot drive, prepare for reinstalling the
operating system from distribution media' ?
3.2: The fdisk manpages all lead to nothing; at least the Atari man page
exists.
3.3: the firmware section can be omitted; it's more relevant to point out
the operating system version requirements here. I.e. AmigaOS patches or
ROM versions (maybe in the FAQ) and for Mac users the minimum MacOS version
(>=
7.1 I think, system in 32 bit mode recommended).
4.5.x: Information on Atari and Mac partitioning is missing.
Atari: partition IDs are three ASCII characters, use LNX for data and SWP
for
swap partitions. There's a multitude of tools available (third party; the
Atari
tools don't permit changing the partition ID) so no detailed description can
be given.
Mac: Partitioning tools tested include HD SC Setup (Apple), HDT 1.8 (FWB),
SilverLining (??) and DiskTool (Tim Endres, GPL). Full versions are required
for HDT and SL, the Apple tool needs a patch to recognize third party disks.
The partition type has to be set to 'Apple_Unix_SVR2', the names need to be
'A/UX Root', 'A/UX Root&Usr' or 'A/UX Usr' for data partitions, 'A/UX swap'
for swap. HD SC Setup will pick the right names and type when creating A/UX
prtitions in a 'Custom' setup, other tools may require the user to type
in these names.
5.2.1: 'booting from floppy' on Atari still means starting the boot loader
on
the floppy manually. It's not really different from booting from the disk
(just
slower).
For all m68k machines, booting from an existing operating system is the
_only_
option. There's a LILO for Amiga and even for Atari but no one has written
the
scripts to use these boot methods for Debian/68k yet.
5.3:
amigainstall.lha, install.lzh (Atari) and Install.sit (Mac) are missing.
mac/resc1440.bin, mac/drv1440.bin are missing.
-rw-r--r-- 1 schmitz Debian 671157 Jan 19 00:59 rootamiga.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 schmitz Debian 671347 Jan 19 00:59 rootatari.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 schmitz Debian 671188 Jan 19 00:59 rootmac.bin
answers your question for root.bin. On Amiga, it remains named
rootamiga.bin,
on Atari and Mac it's renamed root.bin after installation in the subdirs.
And the fdisk help texts are not there, again.
5.4.1: Would be nice to have the corresponding sections from the Atari and
Mac
documents here.
Atari:
Use the following steps to install Debian from your pre-existing TOS/GEM
setup.
1.Get the files atari/install.lzh and common/base2_1.tgz.
2.Unpack install.lzh into a partition with at least 10MB free. We
recommend you unpack it into the main directory.
3.After unpacking, you should have a debian directory. Move
common/base2_1.tgz into that same debian directory. Do not rename
any files in this directory.
4.Write down the Linux partition name for the location where your new
debian directory is. See Disk Naming in Linux, section 4.2 for
more information on Linux partition naming.
5.Prepare your partitions for Linux. See Partitioning Prior to
Installation, section 4.5.
6.
When you're back at the GEM desktop, start the Linux installation process by
double-clicking on the "BOOTSTRA.PRG" icon in the
"debian" directory. If installing from floppies, double-click on the
"BOOTSTRA.TTP" icon, or the "BOOTSTRA.PRG" icon in the
"AUTO" folder instead. BOOTSTRA.TTP will prompt for parameters, simply hit
return for now.
You may have to press the Return key after the bootstrap program has output
some debugging information into a window.
After this, the screen will go grey, a few seconds of delay, and after that
a black screen with white text should come up, displaying all kinds of
kernel debugging information. These scroll by far too fast for you to read,
but that's not important right now.
After a couple of seconds, the installation program should start
automatically.
If you get up to this point, you can be quite confident that you will be
able to install Linux on your system.
Mac:
Use the following steps to install Debian from your pre-existing TOS/GEM
setup.
1.Get the files mac/Install.sit, mac/resc1440,.bin, mac/drv1440.bin and
common/base2_1.tgz.
2.Unpack install.lzh into a partition with at least 10MB free. We
recommend you unpack it into the main directory.
3.After unpacking, you should have a debian directory. Move
common/base2_1.tgz,
mac/resc1440,.bin and mac/drv1440.bin into that same debian directory. Do
not
rename any files in this directory.
4.Write down the Linux partition name for the location where your new
debian directory is. See Disk Naming in Linux, section 4.2 for
more information on Linux partition naming.
5.Prepare your partitions for Linux. See Partitioning Prior to
Installation, section 4.5.
6. When you're back at the MacOS desktop, start the Linux installation
process by double-clicking on the "Penguin Prefs" icon in the
"debian" directory. If installing from floppies, double-click on the
"Penguin Prefs" icon there. The Linux booter (Penguin) starts up, loads
kernel and ramdisk and starts booting without further ado. (If you want to
examine or change the booter settings first, hold down the
'command' key while starting Penguin.)
If starting the booter from the harddisk, you will have to set the path for
kernel (linux) and ramdisk (root.bin) correct for your system on
the first start of the booter. Start up holding down the 'command' key until
the booter has finished loading and reading the preferences file.
Go to the "Settings" dialog (shortcut: command-T) and adjust the path for
kernel and ramdisk by clicking on the appropriate buttons in the
upper right corner of the panel. Kernel and ramdisk are in the 'debian'
directory on the drive where you unpacked the install.sit archive. Save
the settings to the preferences file in that directory (using command-S) and
boot using the command-B shortcut.
After this, the screen will change colors, a few seconds of delay, and after
that a black screen with white text should come up, displaying all
kinds of kernel debugging information. These scroll by far too fast for you
to read, but that's not important right now.
After a couple of seconds, the installation program should start
automatically.
If you get up to this point, you can be quite confident that you will be
able to install Linux on your system. In case the installation program
complains about not finding any disks or partitions to install on, try a
newer kernel or check your partition types again.
5.4.2: Inserting a floppy and rebooting won't do anything. On Mac, the
floppy is
going to be ejected, on Atari, the machine is going to boot from disk
anyway.
5.7: I'm repeating myself here, but we never boot from floppies. On Atari,
the
bootstrap may be located on floppy with the kernel and ramdisk (resc1440.bin
image), on Mac, the booter is missing from the resc1440.bin image and a
corresponding HFS image hasn't been tested yet.
5.8: not an option on Amiga and Mac.
5.9.2: Intelism :-) Please don't mention DOS, Lose or OS/half. The Atari TOS
equivalent is rawwrite.ttp and takes the name of file to be dumped to floppy
as argument.
6.1: The boot arguments are passed to the booter by three different methods:
Amiga, Atari: the bootstrap takes Unix-style command options, either from
the command line or shell script (Amiga) or from the parameter dialog box
(Atari
GEM)
Default command line:
-d -k linuxamiga -r rootamiga.bin root=/dev/ram load_ramdisk=1 (Amiga IIRC)
-s -k linux -r root.bin root=/dev/ram load_ramdisk=1 video=keep (Atari)
Atari: if no command line is given at the parameter box, a file 'bootargs'
in the current directory is read. Edit to taste.
Mac: the 'Settings' menu dialog contains select buttons for kernel and
ramdisk,
a number of other option buttons and a text field for kernel options.
root=/dev/ram video=macfb:font:VGA8x8 is what I'll end up using as default,
and
users with big enough screens can use VGA8x16 instead.
6.2: irrelevant; the F1-10 text files are only left on the rescue disk as
irritation for the user. Boot by double clicking on the bootstra.ttp icon.
(Atari only)
7.7: MFM and RLL disks on m68k? I doubt it. ACSI might come close...
7.9: Due to a quirk in the Linux HFS code, the user will be offered three
choices:
/instmnt/debian/.finderinfo
/instmnt/debian/.resource
/instmnt/debian
Only the last directory actually contains the data portion of the files.
Either
type in the right path, or skip the .finderinfo and .resource entries.
7.12 only mentions floppy drives as options. There's a 'harddisk' and
'filesystem
(already mounted)' as well, and that's what makes sense for 99% of the m68k
users.
7.14, 7.15: LILOs not supported, so neither direct booting from disk nor
from floppy.
Instead, reboot into native OS and edit the boot script (Amiga), bootargs
(Atari)
or change the booter settings (Mac) to replace /dev/ram with /dev/<rootfs>.
Between 7.19 and 7.20: pppconfig; important note: use 'provider' for the ISP
you're connecting to for installation.
10.3: Trademarks are all irrelevant (Alpha is a trademark of Compaq now I
guess); m68k stuff needs adding.
Michael
Reply to: