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Re: S/390 install cd image?


On Jul 8, 2005, at 4:20 AM, Frans Pop wrote:


(CCing this thread to the debian-boot list as that is where installer
development is coordinated)

On Thursday 07 July 2005 21:35, Patrick Finnegan wrote:


Is there a CD install image for debian s/390?  I just acquired a G5
S/390 which I want to get Debian up and running on, and since I don't
have any other OS or tape devices on it, it'd be easiest to install
using the SE laptop CD drive, which I've heard is possible with SuSE
and RedHat's S/390 distributions.

Any towards doing this would be appreciated, even if it's just
instructions on how to build my own bootable S/390 CD. :)
There currently are no S/390 CD's that can be used for installation, only 
CD's containing packages.

We actually had no idea that it was possible to install from a CD on
S/390. We should be able to create an installation CD, but someone will have to feed us the information on what's needed to make the CD bootable 
and what drivers are required.
If the hercules S/390 emulator also supports booting/installing off CD (or 
a CD image), information on how to do that would be very welcome too.
So, if you're interested on helping us realize this, you're very welcome.
If "Boot from CD" on G6 and earlier machines is simply treating it like a 3422 tape device, then all you would need is an appropriate TDF definition, such as 

@TDF
kernel.debian fixed recsize 1024
parmfile.debian fixed recsize 1024
initrd.debian fixed recsize 1024
TM
EOT
I think this will work since this is basically how the VM "install from CD" works. I don't have easy physical access to a machine with an HMC I can try it on though.
After you've done that, then point the IPL at the "tape device" thus defined, and it should IPL from it OK.
For zSeries things get a little tougher. The 3422 is no longer a supported device, and the "boot from DVD" option appears to load an image of the system (pretty much like a DCSS) into core, and then transfer control to it. That's undocumented, but, again, if you have, say, the z/VM 5.1 DVD, you can see what it appears to be doing, although I don't know how or where you specify the load address. There does exist a procedure to save a Linux kernel in such a way that it can be loaded up in a DCSS, so if that's all there is to it, you'd effectively create a RAM image of the machine's initial state, load it, and transfer control to it. 

Adam
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