Re: install from CD on an Indy
I'm noticing that Indigo2's seem to have much better availability then
than Indy's and also are quite a bit faster. I can do with the lack of
Indigo 2 video support as long as the CD install method described below
will still work. It looks like they both use the same tftpboot.img, and
I'm guessing the Indigo2's boot code is similar enough to the Indy's
that it will boot from the CD the same way. Can someone confirm this?
Just in case I have to revert to a net install, do the instructions at
http://www.linux-debian.de/howto/debian-mips-woody-install.html apply to
the Indigo 2 also? If so, can someone point me to directions on using
the serial console. So far the only help I've been able to find is the
following in the MIPS-HOWTO.html:
Silicon Graphics Indigo2
This machine is the successor to the Indigo and is very similar to the
Indy. It is now supported, but is lacking in several areas. You will
have
to use serial console. If you have an Indigo2 and still want to run
Linux on it, contact either Florian Lohoff (flo@rfc822.org) or Klaus
Naumann (spock@mgnet.de) .
Thanks,
Chris Plummer
bmurray@terminus95.freeserve.co.uk wrote:
>
> This (i.e. CD only installation) is indeed possible, and I have done it. But you cannot do it directly with the 6CD set, I think you also need a homemade "boot CD".
>
> I made mine as follows...
>
> I downloaded the tftpboot image to be found at
>
> http://honk.physik.uni-konstanz.de/linux-mips/install/r4k-ip22/tftpboot.img
>
> (the principal significance of this image is that it uses a kernel with ISO9660 support compiled in, needed to mount the installation CDs locally rather than accessing them via NFS or ftp over a network - the 3.0r0 and 3.0r1 distributions do not have this yet, as far as I know). Then, since I was working on a Win2K platform, I used Nero to create an .iso image of a CD with this single file on the disc. Don't burn the disc yet, since this iso image needs to be modified first.
>
> The first 512 bytes of the iso image are then patched (I did it manually with a hex editor) to put a fake SGI disk label on the eventual boot CD - this is a small data structure which is read by the Indy PROM firmware, and contains (primarily) a pointer from filename "sashARCS" to the logical block on the disc where the tftpboot image file can be found - I derived this using IsoBuster (adjusting for the fact that the Indy firmware expects to work in logical blocks of size 512 bytes, whereas CD-ROMs natively number logical blocks of size 2K bytes). I think Guido Guenther was the first guy to figure out how to do this, by reverse engineering an IRIX install disc - there is some C source around on his website from which you can reverse engineer the SGI disc label format. There is some checksumming involved in making a disc label, I wrote a little bit of code to do that bit.
>
> Having modified the iso image, you then burn the disc. The Indy will now boot directly from this disc,and run the installer exactly as if you had done a tftpboot. Start the machine, escape into the PROM monitor, and select "Install System Software" (my Indy has a PROM version in which this is implemented in a GUI, but you also can do it with a "boot" command and appropriate arguments to specify the boot device.
>
> The install pretty much runs as normal from then on. You can do the necessary fdisk-ing with the tools that load into the RAMdisc created when booting into the installer, but of course when you get to the kernel installation part of the install process, you need to insert the real CD#1 from the set bought from your vendor. When fdisk-ing, you need to make an SGI volume header on your target bootable HD big enough to take the kernel (at least 5 MB, 10 would safer), but all this is covered in the HOWTOs etc available on the web.
>
> I also found that I head some problems with a TEAC SCSI CD-ROM drive (model 532S), but a 12X Toshiba one worked perfectly. Some people will tell you this is to do with the ability of the drive to support 512 byte logical block sizes, but I am not convinced. The TEAC had a specific jumper to force the drive into this mode, but still failed. I believe it is something to do with the SCSI implementation (maybe even a termination problem, I never found out) - the SCSI controller on Indys is reputedly very fussy.
>
> If it helps, I can email you the image iso image for the boot disc (it is on a different machine to the one I am using currently, so it will be a few hours yet before I can manage this).
>
> Bruce Murray
>
> Southampton UK
> >
> > From: Chris Plummer <darwin.plummer@Sun.COM>
> > Date: Wed 05/Mar/2003 04:34 GMT
> > To: debian-mips@lists.debian.org
> > Subject: install from CD on an Indy
> >
> > Is it possible to install Woody on an Indy using the Debian 3.0 6 CD set
> > that can be purchased from various venders (assuming the presence of an
> > internal or external CD-ROM drive of course). I'd rather not go the
> > netboot/netinstall route if possible. I've done it for the Qube 2, and
> > found it to be such a major pain compared to CD installs I've done on
> > other systems.
> >
> > If it is possible, please pass along a brief description of what needs
> > to be done. Thanks!
> >
> > Chris Plummer
> >
> >
> > --
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> >
> >
> >
>
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