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JurgyMan
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2003 10:41 pm    Post subject: Gentoo on RS6000 B50 HOWTO - first draft Reply with quote

How I got Gentoo PPC on an IBM RS/6000 B50:
  1. Followed RS6000 boot disk build instructions from Rocklinux:
    Make boot disk with Kernel Image:
    Code:
    mformat a:
    mcopy <Kernel-Image> a:zimage

    [1]Burned the live.iso image from Gentoo PPC install cdrom at gentoo.org. Note this is a root ppc linux system, and not the original iso you download. IE, the live.iso is inside the Gentoo PPC install downloaded iso.

  2. Boot the RS/6000, and when Boot-Up Icons come up (Listen for a IBM boot up sound), Hit F8 to enter the Open Firmware. Prompt is a ">"; Type:
    Code:
    boot floppy:,\ZIMAGE root=/dev/scd0 load_ramdisk=1

  3. This will load the kernel image from your floppy... then it'll attempt to mount root image off of the cdrom. If it all works, you'll see Gentoo booting up, but with some read-only type of errors. No show stoppers tho. Login as root, <enter> for a password.

  4. Because root (and /etc/) is mounted read-only, I can't setup DNS and resolv.conf file. So, below I created a ramdisk, copied /etc contents there, then over- mounted the ramdisk on top of /etc. See file:/usr/src/linux/Documentation/ramdisk.txt.
    Code:
    dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ram2 bs=1k count=4096
    mke2fs -vm0 /dev/ram2 4096
    mount /dev/ram2 /mnt
    cp -prdv /etc /mnt
    umount /mnt
    mount /dev/ram2 /etc

    You may need to do this for /var too?!

  5. Now we can setup networking. The B50 has an AMD PCNet32 ethernet chip. Check "dmesg" output to make sure it was detected. For some reason my eth0 device didn't have a MAC address... so I picked one out of thin air:
    Code:
    ifconfig eth0 hw ether 01:02:03:04:05:06

  6. Now you can continue with the regular Gentoo PPC Installation Steps to build a basic Stage1 system, which briefly are:
    Code:
    /sbin/ifconfig $IFACE $IPNUM broadcast $BCAST netmask $NMASK
    /sbin/route add -net default gw $GTWAY netmask 0.0.0.0 metric 1
    ping -c 2 gentoo.org && echo hurray!
    fdisk /dev/sda # Create sda1 type=41, sda2 type=82, sda3 type=83
    mkswap /dev/sda2 && swapon /dev/sda2
    mke2fs /dev/sda3 && mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
    cd /mnt && wget <URL-of-gentoo-ppc-stage1, see reference>
    tar -xvjpf stage1-*.tbz2
    mount -o bind /proc /mnt
    cp /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/resolv.conf
    chroot /mnt /bin/bash
    env-update
    source /etc/profile
    emerge rsync

  7. The promise of a Gentoo system is that it's highly optimized for your CPU. Edit the /etc/make.conf "nano -w FILENAME" and set below variables. These values are specific to a B50, and may be different for you. Check CPU info with "cat /proc/cpuinfo". Gcc options taken from http://www.dis.com/gnu/gcc/gcc_32.html#SEC32:
    Code:
    CFLAGS=" -O2 -pipe -mpowerpc-gpopt -mcpu=604 -mmultiple -mstring "

  8. Now continue on with Stage2 stuff. See Rocklinux for a guide on the Kernel options. Get fancy by copying it to /usr/src/linux/.config and running "make oldconfig" then make menuconfig:
    Code:
    cd /usr/portage
    scripts/bootstrap.sh
    emerge system
    ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/path/to/timezonefile /etc/localtime
    emerge sys-kernel/ppc-sources
    make menuconfig
    make dep && make clean vmlinux modules modules_install
    cp vmlinux System.map /boot
    emerge app-admin/metalog
    rc-update add metalog default
    emerge sys-apps/vcron
    crontab /etc/crontab
    emerge vim

  9. Setup your mounts in /etc/fstab (/dev/sda3 is root /dev/sda2 is swap):
    Code:
    vi /etc/fstab

  10. Optionally Config /etc/yaboot.conf to point at your /boot/kernel and Install yaboot loader:
    Code:
    dd if=/usr/lib/yaboot/yaboot of=/dev/sda1

    Or if you're like me, and couldnt get yaboot to work:
    Code:
    dd if=/boot/kernel of=/dev/sda1

  11. Finally, reboot to OpenFirmware, and run commands:
    Code:
    setenv boot-device disk:1
    setenv boot-file root=/dev/sda3
    boot


References:

Stage-1-PPC-1.2 tarball

http://adequat.c2a.fr/linux/howtos/rs6000
http://www.fifi.org/doc/HOWTO/en-html/IBM7248-HOWTO/
http://www.solinno.co.uk/7043-140/walkthrough/suse73inst/
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/yellowdog/old_releases/champion-1.2/ppc/install/CHRP/
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Gerk
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 21, 2003 1:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Excellent! I'll see if we can't get this included in our official docs :)
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Uranus
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 24, 2003 8:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

cool stuff! You wouldn't happen to have a digital camera/webcam handy would you? (*hint* *hint*)
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CL
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 24, 2003 6:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

cool!

Here at work we have an old RS6000 C20 which is about ready to turned into scrap iron (it's been sitting in a storage closet for a few months now). But it's a $25,000 (well, it was back when we bought it) piece of scrap iron so maybe I'll resurrect it and try to put Gentoo Linux on it :D
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JurgyMan
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 24, 2003 10:22 pm    Post subject: second draft Reply with quote

The second draft maybe as simple as... Follow the Gentoo PPC install instructions... but boot via:

F8
boot cdrom:\boot\zimage.rs6k

My B50 wont boot the default vmlinuz. but when building my custom kernel(make zimage), i noticed it creates a "chrp-rs6k" version of kernel image... and this is what I use

Perhaps all it takes is including this on the PPC cd.
I dont know if I'll have time to test that, tho.

I do have a nicely running system tho... boot and root is ext3, the rest is LVM with JFS (Wanted to make the RS/6000 felt at home! hah!)...

Still haven't gotten the devil to boot via yaboot tho. Currently have a cdrom with \linux kernel on it, and Open Firmware is automagically booting:

boot cdrom:\linux root=/dev/sdb2

Cheers!
JurgyMan

PS, Pictures are forthcoming!
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JurgyMan
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 27, 2003 1:21 am    Post subject: rs6k pix Reply with quote

Gentoo on an rs/6000 B50:
[img:dca98cf35a]http://jurgy.net:8008/pics/gen2-b50-1.jpg[/img:dca98cf35a]

B50 Closeup:
[img:dca98cf35a]http://jurgy.net:8008/pics/gen2-b50-3.jpg[/img:dca98cf35a]

Boot Msgs:
[img:dca98cf35a]http://jurgy.net:8008/pics/gen2-b50-4.jpg[/img:dca98cf35a][/img]
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gargoyle
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2003 11:50 pm    Post subject: PReP? Reply with quote

I have a older (probably much older) PReP based RS/6000. Has anyone tried Gentoo PPC on one of those?
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plate
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 29, 2003 1:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Something like this? Shouldn't be too difficult if you blend this thread and the PReP loader specifics from that site together...
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LuckyLuke
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2003 9:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

plate wrote:
Something like this? Shouldn't be too difficult if you blend this thread and the PReP loader specifics from that site together...


I actually have an RS6000 7043/140p running Gentoo from about november 2002... no difficulties at all...
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fuzzyfelt
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 12, 2003 12:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Great instructions! I now have a 7043-150 (A 604e CHRP based 43p) running Gentoo.
I didn't like the idea of using another distro's kernel, it feels like cheating and later for another reason(see below), so I rolled by own by cross compiling from an x86 box running Gentoo. This gave me the ability to throw in what I wanted. In went floppy disk support, reiserfs and mga framebuffer support. The final zImage ended up to be about 2 Megs in size so it had to be burned to CDROM.

I couldn't find mkreiserfs on the Gentoo iso so I cross compiled the reiserfs tools from the x86 box and poped them on a ext2 formated floppy disk.

The boot process for me went like this:
My monitor is plugged into a Matrox card so I used a Null Modem cable from the 43p's 1st serial port to my x86 box running minicom.

* Insert CD with my own bzImage
* Power on
* Press 8 repeatedly after all RS6000s have written whilst the keyboard, sound, scsi, speaker things are written to screen.
(Tip: Just before this screen the LED code should read E1B1, Its a nice way to see that E1F1, the Openprom boot screen, is iniment.)
* Type: boot cdrom:\ZIMAGE root=/dev/scd0
* Once the kernel has loaded into memory swap cds so that the Gentoo root cd is in ready to be mounted. I really should have hooked up an external SCSI cdrom to make this process easier.
* Carry on as normal.

Some gotchas I had were:

For the first boot I used the Rock Linux kernel. Everything looked ok. Did a reboot for one reason or another and found that I couldn't get my network cards to work. The onboard and an extra PCI one were both AMD PCnet 100s. I was experiancing a problem that I had when I first played with RedHat on a PPC (Also had to cross compile for that too) and similar to what JurgyMan experianced. My network cards were missing there ether address. Only when I then tried to set their IP I would get Invalid Operation. I had learnt from my Redhat PPC days that the way to sort this out was to reboot into AIX then back to Linux. Not a good solution. So I put a 3Com card in and compiled support into my new kernel. However I never used this because the from the first time I booted by own kernel (2.4.20) the AMD cards worked perfectly everytime and I didn't need to set their MAC addresses either.

The other problem I found was that I couldn't boot from the hdisk1:1 after I dd'd the image onto it. The image would look like it loaded and the progress thing would spin but then it would hang with an error on the LED.
I got round this by setting the partition type to a FAT 16, formating it as a FAT FS and setting boot device to hdisk1 and boot file to ,\ZIMAGE root=/dev/sdb3 or similar.

My X server doesn't work with the MGA card and I can't find a a PPC driver for the Fire GL1 card installed by IBM in the box so I'll try a PCI form NVidia card before I give up.

Also if you have a CHRP based system and you do a make zImage you must use the file zImage.chrp-rs6000. I guest this is because the image conatins platform specific code to do a gunzip before it boots the actual kernel.

If you want my huge kernel image send me an email and I'll put it up somewhere.

Have fun, Ali
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plate
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 12, 2003 5:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you would be so kind... 8) A download link to your boot kernel is highly appreciated, and if you could get this into the queue for the official PPC CD image I'd be doubly glad.

On a personal note, there's a 7043-140 sitting in my office now, waiting to get switched to Linux. Sweet revenge! I tried updating Netscape to v7 on that one, back in November during my last visit to the corporate HQ, only to hear from IBM that they had to check my credentials (for 48 hours) before they would grant download permissions to my clearly European (i.e. non-Taliban) IP address... Well, no AIX, no need for a Netscape client from IBM, is there? :twisted:
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LuckyLuke
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 13, 2003 3:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

fuzzyfelt wrote:
....
My X server doesn't work with the MGA card and I can't find a a PPC driver for the Fire GL1 card installed by IBM in the box so I'll try a PCI form NVidia card before I give up.

I use matroxfb (with a Millenium2 PCI) and the framebuffer X driver, and it works ok. On a 7043/140p...

fuzzyfelt wrote:
...
If you want my huge kernel image send me an email and I'll put it up somewhere.

Another thing I want to do when I'll have time (ouch! ;) ) is to put online a precompiled and well-tested linux kernel tuned specifically for the 7043/140...
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himpierre
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 29, 2003 4:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hello

I try to install gentoo on my B50. The machine seems to boot but then i get:

Code:

boot floppy:,zImage root=/dev/scd0 load_ramdisk=1
chrpboot gunzipping (0x00010000 <- 0x00416470:0x00534a7c)...done 2908456 bytes
47376 bytes of heap consumed, max in use 40944
start address = 0x10000
instantiating rtas at 00600000 ... done
copying OF device tree...done
Calling quiesce ...

Unexpected Firmware Error:
DEFAULT CATCH!, code=fff00200 at %SRR0: 0027c290 %SRR1: 00083000
ok


Anyone has an idea how to solve this problem?

best regards
Thomas
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Tobbi
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 05, 2004 6:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've finally managed to get Gentoo running on a RS/6000 7248-133 system with 64mb of ram., using ppc-development-sources-2.6.1-r1 with lots of help found in this thread. Thank you for the fine howto JurgyMan!
I had to dd if=zImage.prep of=/dev/sda1 (my prep-boot-partition) though, and not the vmlinux-image.

:D
-
Tobbi
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 20, 2004 12:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Where can I find the live.iso?
I downloaded the livecd-ppc-1.4.iso and it only contains live.gcloop , can I burn that to a cd somehow? Or how can I extract the files from the file?
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 11, 2004 9:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm in the same boat as oizone. I can get my rs6000 to boot (using one of the suse or yellow dog kernels) but cannot do anything beyond getting root vfs errors or invalid init= programs since the compressed loop support doesn't exist in there kernels and the new livecd's have everything in gcloops.

Can anyone here running gentoo on a rs6000 7046-B50 build a kernel with all the required options (initrd, compressed loop, etc) and post it and the modules somewhere so that I can just roll my own live cd (bust open the iso, add it and burn it with the new kernel + initrd)

Thanks...
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oizone
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 16, 2004 5:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is how I finally got my B50 installed in summary:

-Booted the suse kernel from floppy
-When prompted for a rootfloppy inserted debian root floppy
-Copied the net&scsi drivers from the suse driver floppy to a ext2 formatted floppy and insmodded them from there

rest of the installition went almost as in the guide except I had to bunzip the stage1 package to another machine and the ftp it to the b50 as I didn't have bzip on the root floppy.
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Darth Void
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PostPosted: Fri May 21, 2004 11:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I can't find a kernel to load except the Champion 1.2 which is far too old for the initrd.img.gz (and for some damnable reason I can't find the live.iso image on the disk mentioned above in the 2004.1 version)

Right now my RS/6000 is dead from previous install attempts of Linux that trashed the partition table and I need to at least get a repair install.

I can't find kernel images for the RS/6K CHRP (7025-F50, similar to the B50) that fit on a floppy anywhere.

Please...

Dear god PLEASE

Help.
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genfoo
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PostPosted: Sat May 22, 2004 3:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Maybe here ?

http://ppckernel.org/kernel.php?id=26
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 03, 2004 9:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

alright, I have that rs6000 standing next to me, with AIX installed. it's standing here for some years - don't ask me how I got it. of course, I want to install gentoo on it, but I fail where nobody else fails - I am not even able to get the frigging OpenFirmware prompt.

no matter when I hit the F8- or 8-key, no matter how often I do, the machine always boots from harddisk.

now, can please somebody release me from my ignorance and tell me when exactly I have to press the F8 button? or is it possible the ability to enter OpenFirmware has been switched off (by jumper for example)? if so - how can I reset that?

thanks a lot for your hints.
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plate
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 03, 2004 12:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Are you trying this from a graphical or a serial console? If it's graphical, you wait for the keyboard symbol to flash onto your screen and immediately hit F8 (or try F1 and set your boot options differently). If you're connected via a text terminal, it's not F8, but just 8, I believe. However, I've seen people hacking away at the function key from the second their RS6K starts humming into action, right after pressing the power button. You may want to try that... :P

There's a jumper for a power-up password on my 7043-140's main board, but I know nothing about your hardware, sorry.
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 6:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I really don't get it.

I hacked F8 like I was on mad cow disease, all I get is this:

- If there is no boot floppy inserted, the system boots from hd.
- If there is a boot floppy inserted, the system boots from the floppy. Exactly the same as hitting F5.

At no point I am able to enter the boot command with appropriate root= settings.
:roll:
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Last edited by Kryptik on Tue Jun 08, 2004 2:45 pm; edited 1 time in total
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oizone
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 1:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You can also modify the boot order directly from aix with the bootlist command.
Code:
bootlist -m normal fd root=/dev/sda3

Haven't tested it but that should boot the kernel from floppy and use root from sda3

Which RS/6000 model do you have? are you sure that it has openfirmware?
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himpierre
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 11, 2004 9:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hello

Uh, finally i was able to install gentoo on my rs6k. It was harder then i thought. Booted from debian floppy, downloaded stage3, chrooted and so on. Man, what a job.
Code:

sancho root # cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
cpu             : 604r
clock           : 375MHz
revision        : 49.2 (pvr 0009 3102)
bogomips        : 372.73
machine         : CHRP IBM,7046-B50
sancho root # uname -a
Linux sancho 2.6.7-rc3 #1 Fri Jun 11 20:48:29 CEST 2004 ppc 604r CHRP IBM,7046-B50 GNU/Linux
sancho root #
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oizone
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 11, 2004 9:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

himpierre wrote:

Code:

Linux sancho 2.6.7-rc3 #1 Fri Jun 11 20:48:29 CEST 2004 ppc 604r CHRP


Could you post your .config , I've been trying to get 2.6 kernel to boot, but I'm having some problems, propably related to the framebuffer.
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