Bug#270599: Floppy install on Oldworld PowerMac
On Wed, Sep 08, 2004 at 04:17:55AM -0400, Rick_Thomas wrote:
> Package: installation-reports
>
> powerpc boot-floppy 20040906 OldWorld PowerMac
Thanks for testing this.
> Note 1:
>
> The "ofonlyboot" floppy booted and gave me the "tuxmac" icon in the
> middle of the screen. After the floppy noises stopped, the screen
> inverted colors, but did not switch to text mode. The ofonly boot
> floppy ejected. Normally, at this point it's calling for the root
> floppy, so I gave it the root floppy and hit <return>. As expected,
> it read the root floppy, but the text screen never appeared -- just
> the inverted color tuxmac. So it was impossible to proceed further
> with the "ofonlyboot" experiment.
Mmm.
> Then I tried the "boot" floppy. It gave me the tuxmac and made
> reading noises. After a while it ejected the boot floppy and switched
> to a text mode screen at (I think) 640x480 resolution. This is good
> enough for installing -- but not satisfactory for long term usage.
Yes, i guess quik-installer should allow you to use further kernel options.
You could create your own miboot floppy, and then you can add the options you
want, more on this below.
> It called for the root floppy, so I fed it that, which it read
> happily. After reading the root floppy and asking me some questions
> about languages and locations, it asked if I wanted to read a driver
> floppy. I said yes and fed it the "root-2" floppy.
Well, i fixed the root-2 thingy earlier, so it is nice that it works, even if
there is no real support for this in the installer yet. Feel free to
participate in the fixing of this, be it only by suggesting what the root-2
asking question should be, and where it should be asked. Ideally we would add
a load-second-root-floppy .udeb, which would present a menu and load the
second floppy, and which would be part of the first root floppy.
The root-2 floppy contains stuff (namely netcfg and co) that was spilled out
from the first root floppy.
> My choice of "root-2" at this point was based on a hunch. There was
> no indication of which driver floppy it was expecting (Indeed, it was
> not clear at all that "root-2" was a "driver" floppy. My hunch was
> that it would be needed immediately and that the easiest way to add
> files to the ram-disk root was to emulate a driver floppy.) It would
> be better to out-and-out say "root-2" if that's what is wanted.
Like Joeyh mentioned, right now there is support for loading only one drivers
floppy, which may well be buggy in itself, and maybe a question for asking for
an additional floppy like asking for additional apt sources later on may be
welcome. Also, the root-2 is not really a drivers floppy, but should be loaded
earlier on, maybe.
> It then tried to detect my network interface and failed, so it asked
Because the net drivers are not on the floppy.
> for the network drivers floppy, which I gave it. This time it
> succeeded in finding my network interface and configured it via DHCP
Woaw. I was under the impression that this would fail, from joeyh's comment
about only one driver floppy, but this is great.
> (I would have preferred the option to do this manually, but there is no
> way to specify "DEBCONF_PRIORITY=medium" in booting an oldworld pmac
Like said, if you build your own miboot floppy, you can add any kernel
arguments you like. As miboot is non-free, users may be forced to do this
anyway, so ...
> machine from floppy.) It asked for a mirror, and I specified the
> uchicago one since it seems to be fastest and most reliable from my
> little corner of the Internet.
Overcool.
> Note 2:
>
> Things proceeded more or less as expected until it came time to
> partition the disk. The partitioner could not find any disks to
> partition! Switching to the F2 console and poking about, it became
> clear that this was *not* just a problem with the partitioner -- the
> only ide device present, as far as the kernel was concerned, was the
> CD-ROM drive. My IDE disk was nowhere to be found! There was no
> "/dev/discs" directory, and there was just the CD-ROM drive in the
> /proc/ide directory. Very strange!
There have been a few problems with partman lately, starting with the broken
no_media handling, and then following with the missing dependency of parted
1.6.11-2, which is fixed in 1.6.11-3. Please try again with todays floppies,
and if it doesn't fix the problem, we need to investigate what driver is
missing or something.
> Final note:
>
> Throughout this process, except for once when it asked for the "root"
> floppy, it never ejected the previous floppy. On a Mac, this means I
> have to manually eject the floppy with a bent paperclip. Mac floppy
> drives do not have an "eject" button the way PC floppy drives do.
> This is annoying to experienced folks, and will be confusing to
> inexperienced users.
This is indeed a problem, and it may be worth to include the (small) eject
.udeb in the first root floppy, and add eject support in the revamping of the
floppy request .udeb (floppy-loader, right ?).
> Question in parting:
>
> It never asked for the CD-drivers floppy. Should it have?
See above bug. I suppose you either do net or cd install, so only one is
needed right now.
> Install logs and other status info is available in
> /var/log/debian-installer/.
> Once you have filled out this report, mail it to submit@bugs.debian.org.
Thanks for your installation report.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
Reply to: