Re: Install on MVME1604-014
On Mon, Nov 01, 1999 at 01:30:11PM +0000, Mark Bover wrote:
> I'm hoping someone on the list
> can help me. I've recently obtained a couple of
> surplus MVME1604-014 VME cards (These are the PPC/
> PREP/PPCBug ones without a video controller.) on
> which I would like to install a Debian environment.
> I can load the latest boot.bin file via tftp from
> another unix box but apart from the usual bytes loaded
> and memory location information the only message on
> the console is "VGA already in text mode" then nothing.
> How does boot.bin recognise the various supported
> configurations. (I couldn't find the source) I'm new
> to these cards so maybe I have a hardware configuration
> error?
To understand boot.bin you need to get the boot-floppies source package
from the archive. Following the trail, you'll see it builds boot.bin from
the 2.2.12 kernel-source and kernel-patch-powerpc packages. You are seeing
a kernel problem in the PReP bootloader from what you write. Unfortunately,
I rarely ever see anyone trying to run Linux on the old 1604's (they are
much different in architecture from the current PowerPlus boards mentioned
in the docs). You might try contact Gary Thomas (email somewhere on
http://www.ppc.kernel.org) to find out current status on a 1604 since he
did the absolute original port of Linux to PowerPC on one of those boards.
Try a post to linuxppc-dev to see if anyone has a booting kernel on a
1604.
> The MVME1604 isn't mentioned on the Debian web site so
> does this mean that it's not supported yet?
Yes.
> Any and all help/information will be gratefully received.
> Once I get this working I hope to be able to contribute
> to the development effort, I just need to get over this
> first hurdle!
I've got a whole bunch of these down in my lab...I'll put it in my queue
to try one out...don't know when that will happen though.
--
Matt Porter
mmporter@home.com
This is Linux Country. On a quiet night, you can hear Windows reboot.
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