Re: Install debian RS/6000 44P Model 170

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Fri, Jan 23, 2004 at 02:24:16PM -0000, Leigh Brown wrote:
> Geert Uytterhoeven said:
> > On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, Leigh Brown wrote:
> >> Geert Uytterhoeven said:
> >> > My version of Open Firmware (from Firmworks) didn't like the yaboot
> >> loader
> >> > and kept rebooting with the message `rebooting with the correct
> >> settings
> >> > for this client program' (or something like that), until I
> >> disconnected
> >> > the disk and it couldn't find the boot loader anymore.
> >>
> >> Interesting.  Can you send the output of "printenv" to me, please?
> >> Also,
> >
> > If the device tree is sufficient, you can get it at
> > http://home.tvd.be/cr26864/Linux/PPC/DeviceTree.html
> 
> I've had a look at this.  Yaboot appears to have a different ELF note
> section to the kernel.  From yaboot's util/addnote.c:

Mmm, addnote seems to be only used for the .chrp-rs6k variant, and not
for the plain .chrp one. What is the different between the two, and
which one does the longtrail use.

Also, if the longtrail don't use .chrp, what boxes out there use this
image, apart from the pegasos naturally.

Also, i have long been toying in transforming the arch/ppc/boot into a
standalone tool which would create the different images files from the
vmlinux one (or maybe the compressed version), and also provide the
ability to add a builtin initrd to a given kernel.

> unsigned int descr[N_DESCR] = {
>      0xffffffff,                /* real-mode = true */
>      0x00c00000,                /* real-base, i.e. where we expect OF to
> be */
>      0xffffffff,                /* real-size */
>      0xffffffff,                /* virt-base */
>      0xffffffff,                /* virt-size */
>      0x4000,                    /* load-base */
> };
> 
> >From the kernel's arch/ppc/boot/utils/addnote.c:
> 
> unsigned int descr[N_DESCR] = {
> #if 1
>         /* values for IBM RS/6000 machines */
>         0xffffffff,             /* real-mode = true */
>         0x00c00000,             /* real-base, i.e. where we expect OF to
> be */
>         0xffffffff,             /* real-size */
>         0xffffffff,             /* virt-base */
>         0xffffffff,             /* virt-size */
>         0x4000,                 /* load-base */
> #else
>         /* values for longtrail CHRP */
>         0,                      /* real-mode = false */
>         0xffffffff,             /* real-base */
>         0xffffffff,             /* real-size */
>         0xffffffff,             /* virt-base */
>         0xffffffff,             /* virt-size */
>         0x00600000,             /* load-base */
> #endif
> 
> So if you edit yaboot's addnote to use the second definition above,
> yaboot might have a better chance of working on your machine.  It would
> be nice if a single note section would support RS/600 and longtrail,
> but that might require a bit of experimentation (if it can be made to
> work at all).

I wonder if it would also be possible to add yaboot support for pegasos,
which is also a chrp, using the .chrp kernel. Ethan has discouraged me
to work on the yaboot1, telling me that it is old and obsolet, but there
seems to be no progress on yaboot2.

> >> can the longtrail boot from CD's?  Does it use the same disk format as
> >> RS/6000's to do so?
> >
> > Should work, as long as you have a supported file system on it (e.g.
> > ISO9660).
> >
> > I never tried booting from CD, but I once did an `ls' on a CD, and it
> > worked.  So far I only booted from floppies, SCSI disks, and IDE disks
> > (all from a file in a FAT partition).
> 
> It would be great if we can make a CD image that boots on PReP, RS/6000
> CHRP, Longtrail and Macs.

Yep.

Friendly,

Sven Luther