Help: installing Gentoo on OW Umax S900

drasnor · n00b Joined: 14 May 2005 Posts: 36

To preface, I've installed Gentoo on several of my PC's and am now trying to install it on my old Umax S900. Currently the S900 has a 2.3GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM, 2x PowerPC 604e 180MHz processors, and an IMS TwinTurbo 128 video card. It currently has MacOS 9.2.2 on it along with the latest version of BootX.

I've followed the directions in the PPC handbook up until the part where I actually try to boot the LiveCD. When BootX tries to boot Linux I see a page of text; I think I spotted some framebuffer addresses and hardware probes, the last thing I see is a message, "CPU1 Not Found." Next the screen blanks and there's one Tux in the upper left hand corner of the screen and nothing else. For the next few minutes there's some CD and hard drive activity but nothing shows up on screen.

Here's what I've done so far:
Installed BootX according to the directions in the BootX readme.
Copied G3G4 from Gentoo 2005.0 LiveCD to /System Folder/Linux Kernels
Copied G3G4.igz from Gentoo 2005.0 LiveCD to /System Folder
BootX configuration:
Kernel: G3G4
Ramdisk size: 64000
Options: Use Specified RAM Disk: System Folder/G3G4.igz
More kernel arguments: cdroot root=/dev/ram0 rw init=linuxrc loop=livecd.squashfs looptype=squashfs console=tty0 nodevfs udev video=ofonly

I've tried ramdisk sizes ranging from 32000 to 64000.
I've tried putting different mode settings with video=ofonly (eg video=ofonly:1024x768@60) and no change in behavior.
I've tried checking BootX's No video driver feature, no change in behavior.
I've tried checking BootX's Options/Force video settings, no change in behavior.

From what I've found on Google it seems like this is probably my graphics card jerking me around. Any help getting a console output would be appreciated. If necessary I can do this over the serial terminal (I have the appropriate null modem cable) but I'll need the kernel arguments to do that. Thanks in advance.

-drasnor

JoseJX · Developer Joined: 28 Apr 2002 Posts: 2772

Try using video=imsttfb, I've also made a special OW kernel instead of G3G4, which may help: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-327003-highlight-owkernel.html
_________________
Gentoo PPC FAQ: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-ppc-faq.xml

drasnor · n00b Joined: 14 May 2005 Posts: 36

Thank you, switching to your kernel and using these kernel parameters lets me get to the LiveCD shell:
cdroot root=/dev/ram0 rw init=linuxrc loop=livecd.squashfs looptype=squashfs console=tty0 nodevfs udev video=imsttfb:vmode=14,cmode=16

-drasnor

drasnor · n00b Joined: 14 May 2005 Posts: 36

I've been following the handbook closely and have gotten to the section on Bootstrapping the System. Running bootstrap.sh returns the error:
* Error: '' does not exist. Exiting.

Anyone seen this before?

-drasnor

JoseJX · Developer Joined: 28 Apr 2002 Posts: 2772

Make sure there are no typos in your make.conf.
_________________
Gentoo PPC FAQ: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-ppc-faq.xml

drasnor · n00b Joined: 14 May 2005 Posts: 36

I'm at a loss for finding the problem with it, no typos that I can see.

# These settings were set by the catalyst build script that automatically built this stage
# Please consult /etc/make.conf.example for a more detailed example
CFLAGS="-O2 -mcpu=604e -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
CHOST="powerpc-unknown-linux-gnu"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
MAKEOPTS="-j3"
USE="-X ppc"

drasnor

JoseJX · Developer Joined: 28 Apr 2002 Posts: 2772

Sorry, I jumped to conclusions too quickly there. Make sure that you have a current portage tree on your machine and that /etc/make.profile points to a profile directory. This error can occur if your profile directory link does not exist.

Sorry about that!
_________________
Gentoo PPC FAQ: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-ppc-faq.xml

drasnor · n00b Joined: 14 May 2005 Posts: 36

Thanks, I got it. As it turns out, the default profile for 2005.0 is located at /usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/ppc/2005.0 and not /usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/ppc/2005.0/2.6 .

-drasnor

JoseJX · Developer Joined: 28 Apr 2002 Posts: 2772

If there is documentation for PPC that says otherwise, please let me know so I can fix it. Thanks!
_________________
Gentoo PPC FAQ: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-ppc-faq.xml

drasnor · n00b Joined: 14 May 2005 Posts: 36

Not exactly, the documentation in the PPC section gives you the symlink for an x86 profile and I just changed the x86 to ppc and 2.4 to 2.6:
From http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-ppc.xml?part=1&chap=6
Code Listing 9: Relinking the profile
# ln -snf /usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/x86/2005.0/2.4 /etc/make.profile

The default setting for the LiveCD is probably correct, I just got worried when I did
ls -F /etc/make.profile
according the the handbook and the output was:
parent
instead of (in the manual)
2.4/ packages parent virtuals
In short: the problem was me not thinking about it though it's probably still something that should be changed in the handbook.

-drasnor

JoseJX · Developer Joined: 28 Apr 2002 Posts: 2772

Yes, I'll get that changed. Thanks!
_________________
Gentoo PPC FAQ: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-ppc-faq.xml

drasnor · n00b Joined: 14 May 2005 Posts: 36

Wow, that took a long time to compile. A few other things: the swim3 driver did NOT like being compiled into the kernel and compiled as a module with some warnings though I ended up dumping it. I'd rather have no floppy support than show stoppers on my first boot.

I have a larger problem now though. The drive I used for my install isn't very large (<2GB) and previously had MacOS on it. I wiped MacOS off when I partitioned for Gentoo, so now I have a Gentoo base system with kernel on the drive but no way to boot it. I tried to emerge quik but I'm getting compile errors (see http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-2431445.html#2431445).

If anyone has a solution that'd be great, otherwise it looks like I'll be checking out Debian boot floppies.