Re: Ok...FINALLY got the Indy...
On Sun, 30 Aug 2020, Christopher C. Chimelis wrote:
>
> On Tue, 29 Aug 2000, Stephen Frost wrote:
>
> > * Get a 2nd disk.
> > * Use fx -x to set up the partitions on the 2nd disk, use fx -x to give
> > yourself expert ability and adjust the partitions such that you
> > have around a 10M volume header (it's useful later). Also, you need
> > a minimum of 2 regular partitions.
>
> Ok...wiped the second disk and am partitioning it now. Am I correct in
> thinking that I can use fx -x to set it up like an option drive, add a
> second efs partition, then adjust the sizes of the others as noted
> above? How big should each be and what are they for? Coming from Alpha,
> this sure looks quite a bit like our MILO booting method (where you need a
> small FAT partition to hold the boot loader). I just want to avoid having
> two 2GB paritions if I'm only using a small portion of one for booting
> from...
I actually manually did everything w/ fx under the 'repartition/expert'
menu. fx starts you w/ a 2M volume header, use the expert stuff to adjust that
to be like 10M, then create the rest of the partitions as you want them (I did
a 64M root, 128M swap, 256M usr, 256M var, rest home), label the partitions
that will be ext2 as xfs (just change the partition type using fdisk after
you're into linux) and the swap partition as 'raw'. Note that we're not using
a real boot loader like milo here at all, instead the prom will actually run
the kernel that's in the volume header. At some point later a milo-like thing
or something to modify the volume header under Linux will hopefully show up..
> > * Get a kernel like 'vmlinux-2.2.14-r4x00-cvs-INDY.ecoff'
>
> Ok...where do I find this? I also need a URL for the tarball...
Yeah, sorry, I meant to follow up and got a little busy:
Here's another (longer) take on what I jotted down:
http://foobazco.org/~wesolows/Install-HOWTO.html
Kernel:
ftp://oss.sgi.com/pub/linux/mips/mips-linux/simple/kernels/vmlinux-2.2.14-r4x00-cvs-INDY.ecoff
Tarball:
ftp://ftp.rfc822.org/pub/local/debian-mips/experimental/debian-mips-base-test_0.3.tar
-- This actually has a README and another tarball in it, the 2nd tarball is what
you want to put in /home/sgi-linux
> > * Use 'dvhtool' to drop the kernel into the volume header on the 2nd
> > disk. Something along these lines:
> > dvhtool -v add vmlinux-2.2.14-r4x00-cvs-INDY.ecoff linux /dev/rdsk/dks0d2vh
> > * Set up a dhcp server somewhere on the lan using something like this:
> > ------------------------
> > host test {
> > hardware ethernet 03:00:23:0e:13:20;
> > fixed-address 10.1.1.10;
> > option host-name "test";
> > option domain-name-servers 10.1.1.1;
> > option broadcast-address 10.1.1.255;
> > option routers 10.1.1.1;
> > option root-path "/home/sgi-linux";
> > }
>
> Ugh! I forgot how to get the hardware address! Any
> tips? Nevermind...just found it :-P
Uhm, okay. ;)
> > * Remove the IRIX disk from the system
> > * Change the SCSI ID of the other disk to '1'
>
> Is this really necessary? Couldn't I alter the environment vars in sash
> (SystemPartition and OSLoadPartition)?
Oh, probably, I just didn't have a clue how and it wanted ID 1 (I was
moving the disk between two systems anyway actually...)
> > You don't *have* to go through the 'dvhtool' part if you
> > don't want to, but if you don't you'll always be having to boot off of the
> > network or have a efs partition on the disk that you can put the kernel on to
> > and then boot to that. I'm hoping to at some point be able to figure out the
> > format of that volume header and be able to write something like dvhtool to
> > allow you to modify it.
>
> I'll look into this once I get booted up and running. I've helped Alpha
> out a lot, so maybe I can apply some of that knowledge here... :-) I'm
> assuming docs are lacking on the format of the volume header, but other
> than that, what would help to figure this out?
My first guess was to use dvhtool and just prod through that location
of the disk. dvhtool can be used to put something there (like the kernel) that
can then be found using tools under Linux. Put a few more files into the volume
header and see where they physically start and end and what the beginning of the
partition or disk looks like for changes. I'm not very familiar w/ this kind of
stuff, but that's what I was thinking. One thing I have yet to try that might
be worthwhile would be to ask sgi if they'd be willing to open source or at least
help out w/ writing something like dvhtool that can be used under Linux.
> > Be very careful with fx -x, obviously. You don't want to mess up your
> > Irix install (well, probably not anyway). If you don't care about Irix and
> > don't mind using the net boot stuff all the time and nuke Irix. At the moment
> > I've got a pair of Indy's up, one in Irix and one in Debian that I'm playing
> > with.
>
> Must be nice :-) My Irix install seems ok thusfar. It boots and runs
> fine, despite me playing with the second drive. I'm lucky for that since
> I cannot re-install due to lack of media :-P
hehe, yeah, that could be a problem. :) Hopefully it won't be too long
till something can be hacked out that will allow folks to boot off the disk w/o
having to use Irix to put the right bits in the right places.
> > I havn't figured out how to get the prom to pass a parameter to the
> > kernel by default. You can do 'setenv OSLoader linux', which will make it use
> > the linux kernel by default, but 'setenv OSLoader linux root=/dev/sda1' doesn't
> > work (it's too long to be saved in the prom).
>
> Good to know. Does quoting help? I can't imagine that they made the env
> var THAT limited.
I wouldn't have thought so, but I wasn't able to figure it out. I was
thinking there might be something else in the env that you could set that would
pass the parameters, but I've yet to figure out what... Do let me know if you
figure it out. :)
> > Anyhow, this is mostly off the top of my head, so read over it carefully
> > and if you have questions/problems feel free to email me and I'll do what I can
> > to help...
>
> Thanks!
No problem, hope I've been useful. :)
Stephen
Reply to: