Hi! We're in the process of migrating Debian for sparc64 from SILO to GRUB as GRUB upstream is adding support for modern SPARC machines thanks to the work of Eric Snowberg from Oracle.
In order to make sure GRUB works on all machines supported by the sparc64 port, we need your help to test GRUB on your particular hardware, the older your machine, the better. So, in order to help us, please follow the guide below to install GRUB to replace SILO as your boot loader. NOTE: If your system doesn't boot after installing GRUB, don't panic. Use the current Debian sparc64 installation image and boot into rescue mode by typing "rescue". Then chroot into your installed system and just run "silo -t -f" to restore SILO on your machine. 1. Install the grub2 package: root@andi:~# apt install grub2 Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following additional packages will be installed: grub-common grub-ieee1275 grub-ieee1275-bin grub2-common libfreetype6 libfuse2 libpng16-16 os-prober Suggested packages: multiboot-doc xorriso desktop-base console-setup fuse The following NEW packages will be installed: grub-common grub-ieee1275 grub-ieee1275-bin grub2 grub2-common libfreetype6 libfuse2 libpng16-16 os-prober 0 upgraded, 9 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 4,556 kB of archives. After this operation, 23.6 MB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y Get:1 http://ftp.ports.debian.org/debian-ports unstable/main sparc64 libpng16-16 sparc64 1.6.34-1 [271 kB] (...) Creating config file /etc/default/grub with new version Setting up grub2 (2.02-2+sparc64.3) ... root@andi:~# 2. Make sure you have version 2.02-2+sparc64.3 root@andi:~# apt-cache show grub2 |grep Version Version: 2.02-2+sparc64.3 root@andi:~# 3. Find your boot partition: root@andi:~# mount |grep /boot /dev/sda1 on /boot type ext3 (rw,relatime,data=ordered) root@andi:~# If you don't have one but just one root file system, grep for " / " instead 4. Install grub into your boot partition: root@andi:~# grub-install --force --skip-fs-probe /dev/sda1 Installing for sparc64-ieee1275 platform. grub-install: warning: Discarding improperly nested partition (hostdisk//dev/sda,sun1,sun2). grub-install: warning: Discarding improperly nested partition (hostdisk//dev/sda,sun1,sun4). grub-install: warning: Attempting to install GRUB to a disk with multiple partition labels. This is not supported yet.. grub-install: warning: Embedding is not possible. GRUB can only be installed in this setup by using blocklists. However, blocklists are UNRELIABLE and their use is discouraged.. Installation finished. No error reported. root@andi:~# Note: If you are using GPT partition tables instead of Sun partition tables, you need to install GRUB into /dev/sda (see: https://github.com/esnowberg/grub2-sparc/wiki) 5. Run update-grub: root@andi:~# update-grub Generating grub configuration file ... Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.14.0-1-sparc64-smp Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.14.0-1-sparc64-smp Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.14.0-trunk-sparc64-smp Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.14.0-trunk-sparc64-smp Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.14.0-rc7-sparc64-smp Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.14.0-rc7-sparc64-smp Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.14.0-rc5-sparc64-smp Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.14.0-rc5-sparc64-smp Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.12.0-rc1-sparc64-smp Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.12.0-rc1-sparc64-smp Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.11.0-trunk-sparc64-smp Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.11.0-trunk-sparc64-smp Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.10.0-trunk-sparc64-smp Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.10.0-trunk-sparc64-smp Found Debian GNU/Linux buster/sid on /dev/md0p1 done root@andi:~# 6. Reboot: root@andi:~# 7. Report back to the list and include your hardware and partition setup Thanks, Adrian -- .''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz : :' : Debian Developer - glaub...@debian.org `. `' Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaub...@physik.fu-berlin.de `- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913