On Mon, Jan 03, 2005 at 04:50:00PM -0000, Leigh Brown wrote:

Ulrich Teichert said:

quoted

This seems to result in a different setting and the kernel is not able
to figure out that it is running on a serial console. According to Leigh
Browns, it is not possible to give the kernel parameters on boot-up,
unless you are using his patches, so this may be another issue.

I have a patch you can use to specify parameters on the *command line*
(e.g. boot floppy: root=/dev/sda3 ...).  However, you can always type
parameters on the serial console as it boots (see below).

Mmm, is this one already present in the debian 2.6.8 kernel packages ? If not
we would probably want to include it. I am currently preparing a bunch of prep
patches, so it is a good idea to include this one too. How is it related to
the below command line prompt thingy ...

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But this is how far the default kernel (which is all I can load from CD)
boots:

0 > setenv load-base 1000000  ok
0 > setenv real-base c00000  ok
0 > boot cdrom:

loaded at:     01000400 01492FF4
relocated to:  00800000 00C92BF4
zimage at:     0080A94C 0093E3DC
initrd at:     0093F000 00C884AE
avail ram:     00400000 00800000

Linux/PPC load: console=ttyS0,9600 console=tty0

... This one i mean.

*** This is the point you get 5 seconds to start editing the parameters.
I guess if you specify root=/dev/ram0 or something then it will boot
from the ramdisk, rather than trying to boot from /dev/sda3.

d-i is perfectly happy to just boot without any argument.

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Uncompressing Linux...done.
Now booting the kernel
Total memory = 256MB; using 512kB for hash table (at c0300000)
Linux version 2.6.8-powerpc (sven@pegasos2) (version gcc 3.3.5 (Debian
1:3.3.5-2)) #1 Thu Dec 9 10:27:54 CET 2004
PReP architecture

[...]

quoted

VFS: Cannot open root device "<NULL>" or unknown-block(8,3)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(8,3)
 <0>Rebooting in 180 seconds..

Other than that, it's a nice clean boot.

Indeed.

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[del]

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Then i suppose that copying the kernel is just a matter of :

  dd if=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8-powerpc of=/dev/sdb1

but you have to have a small prep partition as /dev/sdb1, or the above
will
erase whatever you have on /dev/sdb1.

This is not enough. You need to set the kernel arguments with Leigh's
preptool (which is a simple perl script), because of the problems
mentioned before.

Well, you need to have my patch for that.  There are other ways to
manually change the boot arguments (like hexedit etc).

Could you post it ? Anything else you are aware that we should add in our
2.6.8 powerpc kernels which is PReP related ? 

Friendly,

Sven Luther