Re: potato boot-floppies for powerpc uploaded

[Susumu OSAWA <susumu-o@debian.or.jp>]

> Good question considering it just use plain VGA console...which relies on
> the BIOS putting the VGA card into text mode.  There must be something
> seriously wrong with the way the IBM firmware initializes a display
> adapter.  What is the your firmware type/rev and what type of display
> adapter are you using?

IBM Power Series 830 has original firmware(not OF?). It's version is
1.10. On-board graphics chips is S3 Vision864.

But I wonder why dbootstrap cannot display any characters because
kernel can display boot messages on VGA console. I think dbootstrap
does not need change graphics mode.

> BTW, would you be willing to document the procedure for booting from the
> IBM firmware you have and how you booted to this point so I can 
> include the information in the documentation?

Yes, but I think other IBM machines (RS/6000?) can not apply Power
Series 830's boot instruction.

Power Series 830 has bootp and tftp clients to boot kernel. Bootp and
tftp server needs bootptab which has PReP machine's hostname, MAC
address and IP address. For more information, see bootptab(5).

This is sample bootptab file.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
# sm : netmask
# ds : domain name server
# gw : gateway
# ht : hardware type
# bf : boot file name
#
.global.prof:\
	:sm=255.255.255.0:\
	:ds=192.168.1.2:\
	:gw=192.168.1.1:\
	:ht=ethernet:\
	:bf=boot.bin:
#
hostname:hd=/export/debian:tc=.global.prof:ha=xxxxxxxxxxxx:ip=192.168.1.11:
#^^^^^^^machine's hostname                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^machine's MAC address
------------------------------------------------------------------------

--
Susumu OSAWA <susumu-o@debian.or.jp>