Re: Installer for power4 and power5 systems
On Mon, Dec 20, 2004 at 02:19:06PM +0100, Cajus Pollmeier wrote:
>
> Am 20.12.2004 um 13:59 schrieb Sven Luther:
>
> >On Sun, Dec 19, 2004 at 10:49:32AM +0100, Cajus Pollmeier wrote:
> >>Hi!
> >>
> >>Since I had access for some power4 and power5 System the last time and
> >>noticed that
> >>the debian installer didn't work on this hardware (a 64bit kernel
> >>seems
> >>to be needed),
> >>I did some integration on this and added a "pseries" target to the
> >>debian installer including
> >>the 64 bit kernel and a ready to use installer image.
> >
> >Why won't the 32bit power4 kernels boot on these machines ? They
> >should, only
> >the iseries really need a 64bit kernel.
>
> I don't know. The available installation images just crash before
> there's anything
> reasonable on the screen. Using the .config for a crosscompiled 2.6.9
Please provide a serial log output. Could you try also booting the -smp 2.6.8
debian kernel ? It may be that things like the sym53c8xx driver are -up
broken, i have had reports of this earlier, but i am not sure that it would be
what concerns you.
> works fine.
> Besides this, only a 2.6.9+ makes sense because of the included
> virtualization
> features. The 2.6.8(.1) did not boot a p670 at all, while the p615 and
> new power5
> machines did.o
Yep, i am working on real 64bit kernels, but saddly lacking time. I just
uploaded 32bit biarch gcc compilers from doko to :
http://debian-ppc64.alioth.debian.org/biarch/gcc-3.4biarch
Mmm, damn, this URL doesn't work, need to fix it :/
> >>Sure, these power machines are not that common hardware for joe user,
> >>but after
> >>IBM started the openpower initiative its good for debian to support
> >>these machines, too. I
> >>personally like to contribute this stuff, so that other people can use
> >>it, too.
> >>
> >>Anyway the installer is not perfect yet. Perhaps someone on the list
> >>can give some quick
> >>hints in order to save lot of time for me:
> >>
> >>* The partitioner needs to support (pseudo or whatever) the creation
> >>of
> >>a PPC PReP boot
> >> partition, or just check for its existence, since it is needed for
> >>booting. Where to set the
> >> dependencies? What packages to create and/or modify?
> >
> >Fixed in latest parted uploads. partman-prep needs to be written, you
> >are
> >welcome to do this.
>
> I probably will if you can point me to some straight forward
> documentation. I did
> some digging in the partman-* packages some time ago, but in the
> limited time I
> had, it was not obvious what packages were needed for both issues
> (creation of the
> prep partition _and_ checking if it is there). If the first is fixed, I
> should take a look at
> it again, but hints are really wellcome.
You know as much as me. look at the partman-palo as an example, since it does
exactly the same thing. partman code is not the most readable of all :/
> >>* yaboot may be used to install to the PPC PReP boot partition. Same
> >>like above. I didn't
> >> find a place where the depencies are set...
> >
> >This should be fixed, at least i think Colin Watson uploaded a fixed
> >version
> >of this one lately.
>
> Since I've a new kernel, there's a new target in the installer (pseries
> besides of
> newworld, etc.), and I don't know where to put it that the installer
> gets the idea
> that calling yaboot may be a good idea. For the latest build I used the
> components
> from last wednesday.
Bah, once we have official 64bit kernels, this may not be a problem anymore.
Care to contribute to this ? I also have limited time, so it will probably
happen next year, and on top of that, i don't have the hardware.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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