I am working on the problem as well... and I think I can give you a couple of answers...
Thanks to many "contributots" (especially Martin) I tried 10s of kernel images on my Rs/6000 43P model 140. The machine always hangs, but I don't think it actually crashes when initalizing the console. Infact, supposing problems with the video card I removed it and worked on the serial console. I can see on it "Linux PPC loading, uncompressing the kernel..." and other usual stuff. So the console is ok. What happens is after "Uncompressing Linux kernel... Now booting the kernel" . I suppose that this is the time the kernel is trying to recognize the processor type, the mother board bus, etc. etc. The problem is not related to the floppy driver, I tryed to boot via BootP and I got the same results, so I'm not going to remove the Scsi HD, buy a IDE controller, etc. etc. : I'm not expecting much more than from the BootP boot. The SCSI card is supported, to find out what it is just look at numbers on the chip, it should be a NCRxxx. The machine is PreP and the hardware shuold all be supported, Philip said IBM is working at the support (http://www.ibm.com/linux) ... With BootP you just set a bootp server that according to the ethernet card hw serial number answer to queries indicating the tftp server to use and the name of the kernel file to download . You can also set other infos like the client IP and netmask, the DNS, the domain, etc. etc. No need to all that stuff, just put the kernel file bigger than 1.44M in a directory of a linux server and set a couple of files (/etc/inetd.conf and /etc/bootptab). The rs/6000 management will allow you to indicate the bootp server to use and the initial ip of the client. Then it works fine... So there is no need to have a bootable CD... But we haven't a working kernel image... :-) Jacopo P.S.: I think that this should be the current situation for rs/6000 43P 140, if anyone has different informations, please let me know ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). If anyone has a rs/6000 43P 140 with a working kernel please let me know!!! Thanks to all who sent me, or even compiled just for me, the kernel images I tried until now. -----Messaggio originale----- Da: P�sztor Gy�rgy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> A: Phillip R. Jaenke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: [email protected] <[email protected]> Data: marted� 11 maggio 1999 9.43 Oggetto: RS/6000 PPC 604e, 43P 140 >Hi! > >On Sat, 1 May 1999, Phillip R. Jaenke wrote: > >> > Of course I've tried tens of images and tens of floppies. Everytime it >> > hangs when it is the moment of initalizing the console... >I couldn't make boot floppyes, and I couldn't compile the linux kernel... >(in the AIX OS...) > >> Serial console? GXxx card? What kind of graphics do you have in the >> machine? >Maybe it has something GTI card. > >> > Now I could try to boot with TFTP (if it's possible...) >> Should be possible. >How can i do that, to boot from tftp? The machine contains a more or less >runing AIX OS... I want to delete it all, and install debian linux! > >> > The CHRP kernel images I have are bigger than 1.44 Mb so... no floppy boot. >> The CHRP kernel image I'm building SHOULD be <1.44M, but no garauntees. >> ;P >What is the difference betwen CHRP, and PReP??? >This machine can boot both of them? > >> The 43P 140 has an ISA slot. Go find some cheezball ISA IDE controller, >I mustn't open the cover of the machine, because in this case the varanty >would be void... :( There are stupid dealers... > >So, could you make a bootable CD-install-image to this machine? >In this case please put it onto an ftp server! >Because I know that this machine can boot from CD-rom. I installed AIX on >that in that way... > >I have another question: What hardware contain this machine? >Because it contains SCSI card, but i don't know what type of it,etc... >I know only that about the hardware, what the AIX write me out...:( >I think all of machine like this (604e 43P 140) contains the same hardware >by default. Is it true? > >Please help me! > >(Again:And please make a bootable cd-install-image! I have CD-RW, so I can >re-write the CD, in that case if you fail sg.) >
