Re: 2.1_r0 install experience
On 10 Mar 1999, Mark W. Eichin wrote: Hmmm. If that's correct then it's a bug - the comment should say to run _dselect_ with the last binary CD in the drive, not to boot that way... Indeed, I misremembered. The comment was really from README.multicd, and it very clearly says *after* you've done the install, etc. Sorry about that... _Mark_ OK, thanks. You had me very worried for a minute then... -- Steve McIntyre, CURS CCE, Cambridge, UK. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Getting a SCSI chain working is perfectly simple if you remember that there must be exactly three terminations: one on one end of the cable, one on the far end, and the goat, terminated over the SCSI chain with a silver-handled knife whilst burning *black* candles. --- Anthony DeBoer
2.1_r0 install experience
I have a vintage SS1+, ROM 1.3. It has been running a crufty Debian install for a while, so 2.1 seemed a good replacement. Using the 2.1_r0 binary-sparc-1.iso, I discovered that the 1.3 roms can't boot it, at least using the drive I have (which *does* have the right blocksize support that it works, otherwise.) I then discovered that the floppy drive doesn't work (couldn't read sector 1, self test failed so it is probably mechanical.) At this point, things start getting complicated; probably moreso than a normal install... certainly more than the would have been if I could find a version of intelsilo and just make a bootable zip disk. This led me to discover a few minor holes in the install along the way, though nothing that needs fixing before 2.2... Rather than deal with tftp, I copied the rescue image on to a *zip* disk, dd if=resc1440.bin of=/dev/sda and tried booting from the scsi zip drive. That worked: boot sd(0,5,0) got me the Debian 2.1 rescue banner and silo prompt. However, now I need to tell it to get the rest off the cdrom. This should work from here, but I didn't get to far with the install.txt: it has what appear to be non-silo instructions... 6.2. Booting with the Rescue Floppy You can do two things at the `boot:' prompt. You can press the function keys _F1_ through _F10_ to view a few pages of helpful In fact, F1..F10 are a loadlin or whatever feature; silo only supports TAB and help. Searching /install/install.txt for root.bin was kind of vague; nothing ever suggested I actually *put* the file anywhere. % dd if=root.bin of=/dev/sda However, since the rescue is *really* looking for the root on a floppy, I still lose. I've tried a few arguments to the rescue disk: boot: /linux root=/dev/sde load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=1 # just mounted the rescue zip disk as the root. Suggest # adding a dummy /bin/sh or /sbin/init to the rescue disk to # at least echo why it failed... boot: /linux root=/dev/sde initrd=/dev/sde initrd-prompt # complained about not finding /dev/sde, *then* booted, and # mounted the zip disk as root... boot: linux initrd=!cd5 # got Loading initial ramdisk..., then booted, then # RAMDISK: couldn't find ramdisk image starting at 0 # and insert floppy and press enter. boot: linux show_arguments # said # Kernel args: silo() root=/dev/fd0 rw load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=1 boot: linux root=/dev/scd0 initrd=!cd5 load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=1 show_arguments # seems to have ignored the show_arguments, and blasted # straight on to booting and mounting the cd as /. # Unfortunately, the CD doesn't have /sbin/init or /bin/sh either... I suspect the problem with the !cd paths is that they'd work if I were really booting off the cd, but from the zip disk, they don't seem to... Any suggestions from here? or do I need to set up a special silo config on the zip disk, to get it to look at the cd? other bits: % cat /mnt/cdrom/dists/slink/main/disks-sparc/2.1.8.1-1999-03-01/fdisk.txt ** man page not found ** % ls -l /mnt/cdrom/dists/slink/main/disks-sparc/2.1.8.1-1999-03-01/fdisk.txt -r--r--r-- 2 root root 26 Feb 24 22:03 fdisk.txt In silo/second/main.c, the PROM_V0 You have to type image name... help message doesn't fit in 80 columns. _Mark_ [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Herd of Kittens Debian Package Maintainer
Re: 2.1_r0 install experience
Woohoo, found the right hack (as usually happens *after* I send mail :-) Since I couldn't get it to treat switch disks, I looked more closely at the image naming code (main.c, misc.c)... On the same zip disk that I'd already put resc1440.bin on, I skipped over that to an easy-to-type offset, and dropped root.bin there: +% dd if=resc1440.bin of=/dev/sda +% dd if=root.bin of=/dev/sda seek=3000 1907+1 records in 1907+1 records out Then booted the zip disk boot: boot sd(0,5,0) Then at the silo prompt: boot: /linux initrd=sd(0,5,0)[3000-5000] root=/dev/ram (the root= may have been redundant...) and it worked! The installer is grinding through the badblocks check even as I type this. Anyway, if someone would like to turn this into English, it looks like we have a relatively easy boot from zip disk path to add to the install instructions... (I'd write it up more clearly myself, but it is 3am. Maybe later.) Whee! _Mark_ [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Herd of Kittens Debian Package Maintainer
Re: 2.1_r0 install experience
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mark W. Eichin) writes: So, I went through the install, and an old problem reappeared... When booting off of this disk (sd(0,2,0)), I get Bad magic number in disk label! S Bad magic number in disk label! IProgram terminated. ok I assume this is because (1) the disk was originally formatted on an x86 linux box, so it has a DOS partition table (2) fdisk isn't a big enough hammer to fix that... I did note that fdisk had a b option for edit bsd partition table but all it said was /dev/sdb has no BSD-style partition table... I did find (after rebooting with the rescue zip disk) the eXpert mode g option for create an IRIX partition table which is somewhat distressing... and in fact, that looks like what it *does* do. Very very strange. On the sparc, fdisk has: s create a new empty Sun disklabel which is what you want. (It appears that s is in the intel version too - although it doesn't appear in the menus, and I don't know for sure if all the endian issues are worked out.) Intelsilo is at: http://www.cse.msu.edu/~dunham/debian/silo/ as soon as the maintainer folds my changes into the package in potato, I'll generate a potato intelsilo. (May be done already, I'll have to check.) Steve [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: 2.1_r0 install experience
another minor nit: one of the install docs suggests that one should boot off of the last binary cd in your set - so disk 1/1, 2/2, or 2/4 (in the set that is 2 bin + 2 src.) binary-sparc-2 doesn't appear to be bootable, though - or at least, it has no /boot and no disks-sparc. (As mentioned earlier I can't boot ISO disks on my machine anyway.) Probably the doc should be changed, though there's plenty of room on b-s-2 if we wanted to make it bootable as well...
Re: 2.1_r0 install experience
Mark Eichin writes: another minor nit: one of the install docs suggests that one should boot off of the last binary cd in your set - so disk 1/1, 2/2, or 2/4 (in the set that is 2 bin + 2 src.) binary-sparc-2 doesn't appear to be bootable, though - or at least, it has no /boot and no disks-sparc. (As mentioned earlier I can't boot ISO disks on my machine anyway.) Probably the doc should be changed, though there's plenty of room on b-s-2 if we wanted to make it bootable as well... Hmmm. If that's correct then it's a bug - the comment should say to run _dselect_ with the last binary CD in the drive, not to boot that way... -- Steve McIntyre, CURS CCE, Cambridge, UK. [EMAIL PROTECTED] a href=http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~stevem/comp/My PC page/a Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky, +-- Tongue-tied twisted, Just an earth-bound misfit, I... |Finger for PGP key
