[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Installer for power4 and power5 systems


Am 20.12.2004 um 13:59 schrieb Sven Luther:


On Sun, Dec 19, 2004 at 10:49:32AM +0100, Cajus Pollmeier wrote:

Hi!

Since I had access for some power4 and power5 System the last time and
noticed that
the debian installer didn't work on this hardware (a 64bit kernel seems 
to be needed),
I did some integration on this and added a "pseries" target to the
debian installer including
the 64 bit kernel and a ready to use installer image.
Why won't the 32bit power4 kernels boot on these machines ? They should, only 
the iseries really need a 64bit kernel.
I don't know. The available installation images just crash before there's anything reasonable on the screen. Using the .config for a crosscompiled 2.6.9 works fine. Besides this, only a 2.6.9+ makes sense because of the included virtualization features. The 2.6.8(.1) did not boot a p670 at all, while the p615 and new power5 
machines did.


Sure, these power machines are not that common hardware for joe user,
but after
IBM started the openpower initiative its good for debian to support
these machines, too. I
personally like to contribute this stuff, so that other people can use
it, too.

Anyway the installer is not perfect yet. Perhaps someone on the list
can give some quick
hints in order to save lot of time for me:
* The partitioner needs to support (pseudo or whatever) the creation of 
a PPC PReP boot
   partition, or just check for its existence, since it is needed for
booting. Where to set the
   dependencies? What packages to create and/or modify?
Fixed in latest parted uploads. partman-prep needs to be written, you are 
welcome to do this.
I probably will if you can point me to some straight forward documentation. I did some digging in the partman-* packages some time ago, but in the limited time I had, it was not obvious what packages were needed for both issues (creation of the prep partition _and_ checking if it is there). If the first is fixed, I should take a look at 
it again, but hints are really wellcome.


* yaboot may be used to install to the PPC PReP boot partition. Same
like above. I didn't
   find a place where the depencies are set...
This should be fixed, at least i think Colin Watson uploaded a fixed version 
of this one lately.
Since I've a new kernel, there's a new target in the installer (pseries besides of newworld, etc.), and I don't know where to put it that the installer gets the idea that calling yaboot may be a good idea. For the latest build I used the components 
from last wednesday.

Cheers,
Cajus
Reply to: