Re: My K9 Blackdog
On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 04:04:45PM -0800, Neko Ecchi wrote:
> Hi everyone. I'm not sure how active
> this list is, but I thought I'd give it a try
> to see if I can get my old K9 Blackdog
> running. For those who don't know, the
> K9 Blackdog is an old PPC computer
> that plugs into a regular computer via USB
> and boots an xwindow. My blackdog is
> currently running Olmec Linux based off
> of Debian Linux.
>
> My linux version is 2.6.16.20-1-bd
>
> My CPU is an ancient Virtex-II Pro.
>
> Now as for my problem, the company
> that made my K9 has long since gone
> out of business, taking all the sources
> and images with them. Naturally, this
> makes me want to get my K9 updated
> and working.
>
> My /etc/apt/sources.list points to:
> deb http://apt.projectblackdog.com/inuara airedale main contrib non-free
> deb http://apt.projectblackdog.com/inuara airedale/updates main contrib non-free
>
> That location no longer exists and
> throws 302 errors when I attempt to use
> apt-get to update pretty much anything.
> My apt-cache shows all my images are also
> stored on the apt.projectblackdog.com
> location so I can't update anything that way.
> I can't even get GCC installed because
> it goes to the old site.
>
> Is there a sources location that someone
> can point me to where I can try to use
> apt-get to install some programs off of?
> Would it work to just update my current
> sources.list to a new debian source location
> and run my installs? I have already contacted
> Olmec and they don't have any of the
> K9 Sources available. Do I need to
> get back to basics and crosscompile off
> a different machine?
>
> Thanks for any advice you can give me.
Well some thoughts at least:
The kernel will be a problem, since Debian almost certainly does not
have a kernel that will boot on it, and Debian these days requires a
newer kernel, for things like udev, and such to work. So simply
installing Debian powerpc packages from wheezy or even squeeze is almost
certainly not an option.
It could also be that installing Debian packages could break something
used to handle the odd startup procedure it uses for the UI.
The closest Debian version would I think be Etch, which released with
a 2.6.18 kernel. So if you were to point at the etch archives on the
archive server, you might be able to get a working compiler and a few
other things. The url for sources.list for that would be:
deb http://archive.debian.org/debian etch main contrib non-free
I would make sure to know how to restore the system before messing around
with it though, if you care to keep it working. If you don't care and
are just having fun because you have it, then perhaps it is worth a try.
Installing a few packages hopefully won't mess up much.
There is virtex II pro support in powerpc in the upstream kernel tree,
but whether it still works or is supported is another story. It is not
enabled in Debian's powerpc kernel builds last I checked.
--
Len Sorensen
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