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Re: PReP booting





Sven Luther wrote:
On Wed, Aug 15, 2007 at 08:38:23AM -0500, Greg Trigg wrote:
  
After much pain, sweat, tears and two internet service providers, I've 
managed to install Debian Etch on my RS/6000.  Now I just have to figure 
    
Which RS6000 model is this ? a PReP one or a CHRP one ? 
  
It is a 44P-170.  I'm 90% positive it's a PReP model.  It's power3.

  
out how to make it bootable.  The first partition is type 41 PReP boot.  
On the root partition I have /boot with kernel 2.6.18... and ram disk, 
etc...  The directions (written for sarge) that I've been following say 
to copy vmlinuz to the PReP partition using 'dd if=... of=...'  Since I 
don't have vmlinuz, I assumed the kernel image.  So, I copied the kernel 
image to the PReP partition and rebooted as suggested.
    
You should have mkvmlinuz installed, and it should have produced a
/boot/vmlinuz kernel, which you can dd to the PReP partition.
  
I attempted to install mkvmlinuz.  It looked like the install succeeded.  I don't see a /boot/vmlinuz, though.  On the second disk I'm going to make the partitioning a lot more simple to make sure everything has enough room.  There will be one partition for PReP, one for /, one for swap and one for /home when I need it.
I guess though that you don't use the debian kernel but your own. In
this case, remember us why you are not using the debian kernel, and
maybe file a bug report about this issue if it didn't work for you ?

  
I'm using the stock 2.6.18 power3 kernel image.
If it is a CHRP box, you could install yaboot and move the yaboot
executable onto your PReP partition.

  
I don't think this applies, but I could be wrong.

  
Obviously, it didn't work or I wouldn't be writing this.  Now that I'm 
    
You copied the vmlinux kernel, right ? This one is the plain elf kernel,
what you need is the vmlinuz, which includes a small chrp or prep boot
wrapper.
  
Yes, I copied vmlinux.
  
going through the painful process of building a live system again to 
work on it, I really want to do things right this time.  I have a boot 
folder with all the files I would normally need on a PC.  Can anyone 
help me on what to put on the PReP partition and how to get it there? 
    
I will gladly help you out. see above if it helps.

  
Once I get this thing to boot, I'll just copy the system to the disks of 
the other 3 hard drives I have.

The directions I've been following are here:
http://www.ifh.ee.ethz.ch/~rharbers/rs6000/rs6000.html

Perhaps I just made my boot partition too large.  I've seen on a Woody 
install page that anything greater than 10Meg will cause problems.  Just 
in case, I've just partitioned a second disk this morning with a PReP 
partition of 10Meg.  I'm still trying to get the needed files loaded to 
format the second disk with ext3.  I sure wish I'd done all this before 
rebooting.

Anyways, I need to know what to put on the PReP partition and how to get 
it there.  Am I even close?
    
not really. We need more information about your setup though to help you
more clearly.

  
I'm determined to make this work and I'm more than willing to supply any information necessary.  Thank you for the feedback, now I need to find where that vmlinuz is hiding or what's preventing it from being created.

Thanks again,
Greg

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