Hi, your machine is definetly a CHRP one, so there is no use in following the PREP method. I'm not sure but if I remember correctly, the F50 should be able to boot the CHRP kernel without any problem. You could try luthers kernel, which can be found on
http://people.debian.org/~luther/d-i/vmlinuz-2.4.25-powerpc-chrp-rs6k You could go for the daily buld, which is available on http://people.debian.org/~luther/d-i/images/daily/powerpc/netboot-minimal/2.4/vmlinux The last URL points to the netboot-minimal image. >From my experience trying to netboot the machine is the best thing to do, at least as long as your not that familiar with the F50. It's possible that some the aliases you mentioned are pointing to the wrong device. This is why I would remove every other boot path set up in the systems firmware. The F50 can store up to four different ways of how to boot the machine, it tries one after another if they fail. Naturally, the machine will boot AIX after probing the CD ROM... And I think booting a RS6k machine with a powerpc disk isn't possible because they have been configured for Powermacs. So, back to net booting... Netbooting requires you to set up the network interface properly. You can do so from inside the Firmwares Menuing system. Startup the machine, press F8, and locate the network interface configuration. To set up the bootp/tftpd server correctly, you need to locate the NICs MAC adress. There is a "Display system configuration" somewhere inside the menuing system, that lists the details of the configured hardware... There is an ARP issue sometimes: If your boot server is configured properly, and your F50 starts downloading the boot file, but stops suddenly (and doesn't do anything from there on), the boot server might have sent an ARP request to the machine, asking for the NICs IP adress again. You can resolve this issue by "hardcoding" the IP to the MAC adress, by using the /usr/sbin/arp command. I had the same problems some time ago, you'll find more information - and an URL pointing to a rather good HOWTO of how to set up a boot server in one of the posts. Okay, and then it's possible that your machine isn't a F50 at all, at least my machine - I got it from work, the AIX sysadmins told me it was one - turned out to be a 7025-F40. ;-( But okay, since you mentioned you have three way system, this shouldn't be the problem. ;-) HTH and good luck! Christian
