Hi Martin, Thanks for the quick reply.
* Christoph Pfisterer <cp@chrisp.de> [2004-09-17 08:47]:What stumbles me is that CoLo doesn't seem to load the file default.colo from the NFS server.Did you tell your DHCP server that it should serve default.colo by default (filename "default.colo";)?
Yes, I have that setting on my DHCP server. I've now peered at the CoLo source code and realized that CoLo does its own DHCP query to get that name. My server's log show only the BOOTP query done by the built-in firmware, which happens to be consistent with the LCD displaying only "Booting..." and no IP address. My prime suspect is now the tulip driver code in CoLo. I'm not even sure the Cube 1 has the same networking hardware as the Cube 2...
Anyway, Martin mentioned SSH support might be added if there is demand for it. Count me in. :-)It's probably not going to happen because it requires quite a bit of work to provide SSH-only support and so far Cobalt seems to be the only use for this.
Well, I could think of other uses for SSH support in the Debian Installer. I just have to think back to my University days - a lab with 70 beige Intel boxes, a crowded server room you don't want to spend your time in because of the noise... ;-) Anyway, I can understand that noone else has the proper itch to do it, so I'll see what I can come up with on my own.
Another thought I had this morning: Would it be possible for someone to post a hard disk image (.tar.gz or dd) of a freshly installed Cobalt machine with the following properties:Yes, this is possible. I can try to prepare such a .tar.gz file in about 2 weeks if you want (I'm busy until then). However, Gerald Waugh tried something similar and the machine would still not boot fully. Apparently something still outputs something to the serial console or causes a crash through some other way but he never found out what it was. If you're happy to do some debugging (which will involve putting the hard drive in some random PC, changing stuff, puttig it in the Cobalt, trying to boot, and then repeating this), I can supply some system in about 2 weeks.
Sounds good to me, I'm already on that track anyway. So far I've managed to put the files from the nfsroot on the hard disk and get as far as "Loading debian-installer". Next on the list is hacking the initrd to just write something on the LCD, so that I'll know if the kernel boots or not. I'll keep you updated.
-chrisp -- chrisp a.k.a. Christoph Pfisterer "A computer scientist is cp@chrisp.de - http://chrisp.de someone who fixes things PGP key & geek code available that aren't broken."