Micro-HOWTO debian-hppa on 715/80 with serial console & cdrom
Hi, no problem at all, it would be good to detail how I did
what I did so it can go into the mailing list archives.
Hardware:
1 used HP 715/80 with 32M RAM, 1Gb, cd-rom ( from Ebay )
1 salvaged HP 700/60 dumb terminal ( vt220 emulation )
1 DB9f - DB9f null modem cable ( from www.cablesnmor.com )
1 DB15 joystick extension cable ~AUI ( from cablesnmor )
1 AUI to RJ45 ethernet transciever ( from Ebay )
Pre-existing broadband 10/100 switch and DLink DI-501 router
PC with cdrom burner
1. Preparations
The first thing is to get your system in serial console mode.
I didn't have a monitor that worked with the computer initially,
but I did have a dumb terminal. You could use a pc running
linux with minicom just as well. Set everything to 9600 8-n-1
and set your terminal to vt100 or vt220. Plug in your null modem
cable and fire up your terminal. Connect the joystick extension
to the AUI port to the AUI transciever to your RJ-45 cable to
your switch or hub.
Luckily I had the HIL to PS/2 module, so I plugged my pc keyboard
in and booted blind. You will either need a PS/2 or HIL kb to be
able to make the initial switch to serial console.
Press [Escape] repeatedly after powering on. This should get you to
the BOOT ADMIN> prompt, but you won't see it.
Boldly ( and carefully ) type
path console rs232.9600.8.none
This works for the 715/80, not sure about other machines.
Cycle power. Hopefully you should get some output on your
dumb terminal now. If so great! If not, keep trying I guess.
If you get the BOOT ADMIN> prompt on your terminal you are
stylin'! Set the following:
auto boot off
auto search off
At this point you can disconnect the PS/2 keyboard.
Now you need a cdrom. Using NFS is beyond my scope here.
2. Make the cdrom
I used the iso image "palinux-0.9-32serial.iso" from
www.linux-parisc.org When Debian woody is ready
you should just follow the new instructions.
Note: I tried the 0.9.2 image and it did _not_ work
with this 715/80. You have been warned. Newer is
not always better.
Download and make the cdrom as per the CD-Writing
HOWTO. In my case, after un-gzipping I just did:
cdrecord -v speed=8 dev=0,6,0 -data palinux-0.9-32serial.iso
3. Ready to install!
Pop your new cd in the HP drive and do this:
search scsi
It should report:
Device Path Device Type
--------- ----------
scsi.2.0 TOSHIBA CD-ROM ....
So set your boot path.
path pri scsi.2.0
And boot!
boot
If all goes well, you should get the debian install menu!
4. Installing
On my system I had to do some trickery to get my hardware
clock set. Execute a shell as soon as possible from the install
menu and use the "date" command to set the date. This can
be a pain as the format is peculiar. Something like:
date 09 01 1800 2001
^D
Then partition your disk. I made as so.
sda1 20Mb type F0
sda2 850Mb type Linux
sda3 130Mb type Linux Swap
Activate and initialize your partitions
Install the kernel. No modules are required.
Install the base system
Make the system bootable
Reboot
Now, at BOOT ADMIN, when you "search scsi" your hard disk
should show up. change your "path pri" to reflect this.
path pri scsi.6.0
boot
You should get more installation questions. Answer them and eventually
select "Advanced Installation" to start dselect.
Quit immediately from dselect. Do not install anything.
Login as root. Switch to /etc/apt and edit sources.list
vi sources.list
Comment out the cdrom line and add this line:
deb http://us.debian.org/debian/ testing main
Save and install apt-utils before anything else.
apt-get install apt-utils
Then upgrade the base system.
apt-get upgrade
This is where I am at currently.
5. Experiment, Tinker, Reinstall, etc.
Now you can fine-tune, fix bugs, etc.
It took me a few rounds to get it working.
Hope this helps!
- Doug
Albert Strasheim wrote:
Good day,
I see you've been busy with an install (from your posts on debian-hppa),
and I was wondering if you could provide me with a brief summary of what
you've done so far.
There you go!
I have (I think :-)) a 725/50 (if such a thing exists), with a SCSI
CD-ROM and other goodies. I tried booting the 0.92 Install ISO from
parisc-linux.org, but after loading the ramdisk, my 19" (grayscale...
hehe) display goes blank, the CD-ROM still reads for a bit and then
nothing.
I presume I need to get some kind of serial terminal going at this
point? Any idea where I can get some docs on this as well?
Hope I'm not bothering you too much. :-)
Thanks in advance.
Albert
No problem. Hope it proves useful for you.
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