Re: showstopper for debian-7.1.0-powerpc-netinst.iso on POWER5 (p505) and iscsi disk

[Rick Thomas <rbthomas@pobox.com>]

On Aug 5, 2013, at 12:44 PM, Michael Felt wrote:

> Last march I started a thread - that with help - resolved the  
> problem of
> installing from
> debian-6.0.7-powerpc-netinst.iso - and installed on a p505.  
> downloading the
> new yaboot as part of the install (thanks to Lennart Sorensen for the
> hints/instructions that got me going) and I could install and boot!
>
> However, today I tried the  debian-7.1.0-powerpc-netinst.iso and  
> this is
> not successful - "out of the box".
>
> 1) entering "install" at the boot prompt brought me right back to  
> the boot
> prompt, just pressing enter worked much better.
>
> 2) show stopper for an install on IBM POWER (p505) using vscsi for  
> hdisk0.
> And again the "winner" is yaboot.
>
>   ┌────────────────┤ [!!] Install  
> yaboot on a hard disk  
> ├─────────────────┐
>   
> ┌ 
> │ 
>                                                                        │
>  ││                     No bootstrap partition  
> found                      │
>  ││ No hard disks were found which have an "Apple_Bootstrap"  
> partition.   │
>  ││ You must create an 819200-byte partition with type  
> "Apple_Bootstrap". │
>   
> │ 
> │ 
>                                                                        │
>  ││     <Go Back>                                           
> <Continue>     │
>   
> └ 
> │ 
>                                                                        │
>    
> └ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ─ 
> ──────────────────────┘
>
> I had chosen the option "whole disk" - all in one - recommended for  
> new,
> and it created two partitions only (#2 ext4, and #5 swap).
>
> Is my assumption correct that I will need to use manual and create an
> additional partition named "Apple_Bootstrap" _(for now at least) -  
> and if
> so, is there a preferred disk partition # to be used?
>
> Thanks for the feedback.
>
> p.s. a pointer to the bugs site is also welcome and I'll report and  
> feed
> the bug report.
>
> Sincerely,
> Michael

Hi Michael,

I don't have a p505 and I've never tried to boot anything from iSCSI,  
so this may be completely useless to you.  What I'm going to say is  
based on experience with PowerPC Apple Mac G[345] hardware and IDE/ 
SATA disks, so take it with a grain of salt.

Open Firmware (at least on the Macs) needs an Apple HFS partition  
(which can be any partition number, but "2" is traditional; partition  
"1" is the partition table itself and "2" usually follows directly  
after it.) that contains a file called "ofboot.b" (which is a shim  
between openfirmware and yaboot), the "yaboot" binary, and the text  
file "yaboot.conf".  The partition is "blessed" so as to be bootable.

These components are assembled into the HFS partition by a program  
called "ybin" that lives in /usr/sbin.  Normally: The text file,  
"yaboot.conf". comes from your /etc directory. The "yaboot" binary  
comes from the /usr/lib directory. And the "ofboot.b" may be made up  
out of thin air (I haven't been able to locate the original outside of  
the HFS partition.)

It turns out that "ybin" is a shell script, so you can read it  
directly and try to see what it does, if you like.

If the Open Firmware on your p505 understands iSCSI, you could try  
making an Apple_Bootstrap" partition on partition 2.  If it doesn't  
directly understand iSCSI, you'll need a real-live hard disk (or,  
possibly?, a floppy disk? or a USB stick?) to put the bootstrap  
partition on.

I hope this is helpful...

Rick

PS:  Is the CPU in your p505 a 32-bit or 64-bit PowerPC?  If it's 32- 
bit, try typing "expert32" at the installer "boot:" prompt.  If it's  
64-bit, use "expert" instead.  Starting with Wheezy, the expected  
default hardware is 64-bit.  So "expert" in Wheezy is equivalent to  
"expert64" in Squeeze; "expert" in Squeeze is equivalent to "expert64"  
in Wheezy.  Clear as grapejuice?