Re: B50 kernel config file

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Wed, Feb 25, 2004 at 08:29:27PM +0100, Thorsten Sauter wrote:
> 
> Hi Sven,
> 
> could you please create a new rs6k image with the option below?
> Maybe we can get now a working rs6k (b50) d-i images. :-)

Ok, i have worked this out with manty, and have a kernel that is
booting. The problems encountered where : 

  1) The debian powerpc kernel has no serial console support. I suppose
  that serial console makes no sense on recent apple hardware, but is
  needed for these kind of hardware. Two choices are offered to us :
  include the serial console (and thus the serial driver) or spawn a new
  config for serial console hardware.

  2) The sym53c8xx_2 driver was built as module, since the box has this
  scsi chip builtin, and the drives are connected to it, it could not
  boot, and since there was no console, ...

  3) Same for the pcnet driver, altough it is less critical here.

So, i believe that by simply using serial console builtin, we can
already go a great way to have the B50 supported. Thorsten (and others
having or having had access to the hardware), do your box have a real
graphical console, or only serial console. And if it has graphicale
console, do you know what fbdev driver is used ? 

This would mean that debian-installer would work on these boxes, with
both using yaboot (booting from disk or CD for example) or using the
zImage.initrd.chrp-rs6k for netbooting. As i understand, only english
would work with the serial console though.

Now, the problem will be when we reboot the box, since root (either on
disk or NFS mounted) will no more be available. This probably means that
we need to get a way of building a proper initrd into these kernels,
like is done on x86, maybe doing this per default, or using a separate
package ? The one problem is that the initrd on chrp and chrp-rs6k has a
size limit of between 1.4 and 1.9 Mo, so we have to select the modules
than need to go in. I don't know if kernel-package is up to this task.

Alternatively, i could build-in sym53c8xx_2 and pcnet. But then, what
will happen if a next powerpc box needs other drivers builtin ? I would
like to get feedback from the Powerpc with access to such exotic
hardware here.

Friendly,

Sven Luther