call for help: quik- (oldworld ppc) installer (d-i skills needed, not powerpc)
Hello,
as I don't have the time to dig into debian-installer to write a
quik-installer by myself, I would like to explain what I think is needed.
btw, isn't mkvmlinux (http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/mkvmlinuz)
suitable to create boot floppies for oldworld ?! (I currently don't have a
monitor for my oldworld mac but I'll get one until the weekend.)
d-i installer installs quik just fine, and quik (at least for my powermac
4400/200) creates a good quik.conf, except for the refered link to
/boot/vmlinux. /boot/vmlinux-2.4.25-powerpc-small exists, but the link to
/boot/vmlinux is missing. I think this is a bug in
kernel-image-powerpc-small. (a bug which I haven't reported properly by now
:( will do this when I got a monitor so I can revalidate if it's still true.)
So, what's missing ?
After installing the kernel openfirmware has to be set like this
otherwise my mac won't boot as I don't have bootX installed.
#!/bin/sh
nvsetenv boot-device ata/ata-disk@0:0
nvsetenv input-device kbd
nvsetenv output-device screen
nvsetenv boot-file "/boot/vmlinux"
# or nvsetenv boot-file "/boot/vmlinux-2.4.25-powerpc-small"
# depending on the kernel file/link
#
# with SCSI the boot-device setting has to be like this:
# nvsetenv boot-device scsi/sd@0:0 (untested)
As far as I can tell from reading the manpages and homepage quik cannot boot
mac os, so there should be a prompt (on oldworld) asking whether quik should
be installed and open firmware set or not. If the answer to that question is
no, a warning with a way back should be displayed and proceeded.
Now it's time for some ascii art ;-) Since I'm lazy it's more text "art" but
that shouldn't matter...
quik-installer
-------------------
hw-detect: is this an oldworld powerpc ?
no -> exit
question: should quik be installed to boot linux only ?
(if not you will have to use bootX to boot linux from mac os)
no ->
okay to proceed without installing a bootloader ?
yes -> exit
no -> call quik (execute /sbin/quik with no arguments,
as quik.conf is created with sane values
during installation)
set open firmware variables according to mac modell and boot drive
exit
The last "tricky" part for the quik installer as far as I can see is "set open
firmware variables according to mac modell and boot drive". The output of
my mac 4400 is below and I guess it's easily possible to collect a matrix how
boot-device, input-device, output-device, boot-file have to be set with
nvsetenv. There are some default settings
(http://penguinppc.org/projects/quik/defaults.shtml) and some exceptions
(http://penguinppc.org/projects/quik/quirks.shtml ;) but I guess and hope for
most or at least many macs it should be possible to find those.
Machine: PowerMacintosh 4400/200
processor : 0
cpu : 603ev
clock : 200MHz
revision : 2.1
bogomips : 11.89
zero pages : total 0 (0Kb) current: 0 (0Kb) hits: 0/96 (0%)
machine : Power Macintosh
motherboard : AAPL,e826 MacRISC
L2 cache : 256K unified
memory : 48MB
pmac-generation : OldWorld
I know bash well and perl a little, but (by now) I have no clue about d-i
although I had a brief look at debian-installer/tools/(*/)*-installer... if
someone would be willing to help start with a quik-installer I would happily
help that person and (co-)maintain it and collect open firmware settings for
specific mac models.
As I reread my mail I realize that os prober is useful and should be used on
oldworld as well. This is left as an exercise for the reader ;-)
regards,
Holger
p.s. pearpc (http://pearpc.sf.net) emulates a g3 powerpc on x86 hardware. I
haven't tried it yet, but does anybody know whether it emulates oldworld or
newworld or both ?
Reply to: