Re: question on cobalt qube 2 support

[Erik de Castro Lopo <nospam@mega-nerd.com>]

On Mon, 18 Mar 2002 19:36:53 +0100
Andre Schulze <as8@rncmm2.urz.tu-dresden.de> wrote:

> Hello list,
> 
> currently i am using NetBSD 1.5.1 on my cobalt qube 2. Since i really don't
> get a kernel to compile with this port i am thinking about switching
> to linux (i want IPv6 which isn't in the stock kernel).
> 
> So how good is the qube supported? Yes i read it _is_ supported and that
> only the installation is missing (debootstrap ?).
> But it is stable enough for production and does one get a kernel to
> compile (the one from oss.sgi.com i suppose)?

I'm currently trying to get my Qube2 into a workable state. This is what
I've done so far:

1) Pulled a harddrive image from an FTP site 

        http://loco.pocketlinux.com/~samc/debian-cobalt/

   which now seems to be gone. Unfortunately I deleted this image once I
   got the Qube upgraded to Woody.

2) Pulled the harddrive out of the Qube and connected it an i386 Linux 
   machine and dd-ed the image into it. The only problem with this is that
   the kernel on this disk image has a bug which prevents some user space
   apps (ls is one) from working correctly. 

3) Booted the Qube to Debian Linux, set up apt-get and did an apt-get
   dist-upgrade to Woody and added compilers, editor, make etc.

4) Grabbed the 2.4.18 kernel sources and the linux MIPS patches from 
    
        http://linux-mips.sourceforge.net/

5) Applied the patches and fixed a few compile problems (looks like the 
   Qube2 support has lapsed a little). 

6) Saved the old kernel image /boot/vmlinux.gz and copied the new one
   into place and rebooted.

Anyway thats where I'm up to :-). The reboot failed and I now need to pull
the harddrive out and hook it up to my i386 machine again to move the old
kernel back into place and try to figure out what went wrong.

Since the reboot failed I have also built myself a console cable to hook
up to the serial port of the Qube.

I hope to work some more on this little beast this weekend.

Cheers,
Erik
-- 
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
  Erik de Castro Lopo  nospam@mega-nerd.com (Yes it's valid)
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
"Testing can prove the presence of bugs, but never their absence."
  -- Edsger Dijkstra