CHRP booting and ramdisk setup problem (43P-150)

[Michael Wootton <mwootton@austin.ibm.com>]

Hello.  I am trying to install Debian on a 43-P Model 150.  I can get the 
kernel to boot but it hangs when it fails to mount the root filesystem.  I
have tried both the latest Potato and Woody floppies.  I am using parameters
similar to:

  boot floppy:,\linux load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=1 root=/dev/ram video=
    keep

However, it never prompts to insert the ramdisk floppy (i.e. root.bin), just
halts when it can't mount the root device (01:00).  I tried passing in different
'root=' parameters and the major:minor numbers seemed to change.  However, the
kernel seems to be ignoring the 'mem=' parameter and guesses the RAM wrong
(too small). 

The YellowDog floppy boots fine but is useless because it has no tools on it.
It mounts a ramdisk offset in the kernel image, not off of a separate floppy.

Any clue what's going on here?  Maybe the args aren't being passed to the
kernel from Open Firmware?  Tests to try?

Thanks for the advice.

Michael