Re: netbooting oldworld
On Thu, Aug 09, 2007 at 12:14:57AM -0700, Nick Schmalenberger wrote:
> Is there currently any way to netboot the installer on old world?
> http://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/PowerPC/OldWorld/PreAlphaManualUpdates
> suggests that it is possible but the installation manual doesn't have
> clear instructions, section 4.6 mentioned on the wiki page doesn't
> address old world, such as what boot loader to use. Could this
> bootloader http://www.dialectronics.com/bootloader/ be made to work with
> the debian linux initrds?
I suspect the correct way to do this would be to take the kernel and
initrd from the installer and make a vmlinux.coff file out of it. This
used to be the way it was done about 10 years ago.
The kernel tree I'm checking is slightly out of date, but it should be
close enough. There is a script arch/powerpc/boot/wrapper that can
take a kernel and initrd and do the correct magic for several types of
boot wrappers. The correct platform for this case is "pmaccoff", which
will also require the hack-coff utility (source is in the same directory).
You can give that script both a vmlinux file and an initrd file and it
will produce the appropriate files you need. It may need other utilities
out of the kernel tree built, but the Makefile in that directory should
be enough to give you some hints in that area. Obviously this requires
a copy of the Linux kernel source and a compiler.
Once you have a vmlinux.coff file, you need to setup a bootp server
that will give the system an IP address and a location to download
the vmlinux.coff file. The file will need to be available on a TFTP
server. Then just get to an OF prompt on the machine and do
"boot enet:,vmlinux.coff".
Note that depending on the exact hardware there may be various bugs
that make this a painful procedure. There is a reason this isn't an
entirely supported configuration.
The NetBSD people have much better documentation for this type of
thing. If you look at their docs, they use a file called ofwboot.xcf
which is the equivalent of vmlinux.coff.
http://www.netbsd.org/ports/macppc/
Please note that I have not tried this myself and I have no idea if
it will work. I do not keep up to date with the Debian installer
development, and it is possible that a current installer will fall
over dead if used in this way. I really don't know.
Brad Boyer
flar@allandria.com
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