Re: [opensuse] Unable to install 11.0 on my Genesi Pegasos (inst32 stops booting)

[Larry Stotler]

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I also forwarded it to our resident genesi guru, Peter Czanik.

On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 3:49 PM, Lenz Grimmer <lenz@...> wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Hi there,
>
> I have been using and installing openSUSE on x86 for a very long time, this is
> my first attempt to install it on a Genesi Pegasos box (G1@1GHz, 512MB).
>
> I downloaded openSUSE-11.0-DVD-ppc.iso and burned it on a DVD and was able to
> start booting from it, following the instructions on this Wiki page:
>
> http://en.opensuse.org/PegasosQuickStart
>
> However, the installer never comes up, the little spinning cursor justs stops
> at some point and the system is frozen (can only be rebooted by a hard reset).
> This is what I see on the screen, when booting from the DVD:
>
> [SNIP]
> Welcome to SmartFirmware(tm) for bplan Pegasos2 version 1.2 (20040810112413)
> SmartFirmware(tm) Copyright 1996-2001 by CodeGen, Inc.
> ALl Rights Reserved.
> Pegasos BIOS Extensions Copyright 2001-2004 by bplan GmbH.
> All Rights Reserved.
> Auto-boot in 3 seconds - press ESC to abort, ENTER to boot: aborted
> ok boot cd suseboot/inst32
> ISO-9660 filesystem:  System-ID: "LINUX"  Volume-ID: "SU1100.001"
> Root dir: " " flags=0x2 extent=0x17 size=0x1800
> /
> [SNIP]
>
> I also tried to copy the inst32 image into the OpenFirmware directory and
> booting it from there via a menu entry. Again, it seems to start booting (the
> spinner is active for a while), but then stops without any helpful hint.
>
> I stumbled over the following comment on the PowerDeveloper.org Forums - maybe
> this is still the case for the final release as well?
>
> 'inst32' stopped booting in early 11.0 alpha versions, so I stopped trying it.
>
> http://www.powerdeveloper.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=10978#10978
>
> Has anybody been able to successfully install 11.0 from the DVD on a Pegasos
> box? Any hints would be appreciated. Thanks!
>
> Bye,
>        LenZ
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>  Lenz Grimmer <lenz@...>                             -o)
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[Peter Czanik]

Hello,

> 'inst32' stopped booting in early 11.0 alpha versions, so I stopped
> trying it.
>
> http://www.powerdeveloper.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=10978#10978
That was me :) 'inst32' does not boot on the Pegasos any more :-( What
you can do is installing a minimal 10.3 and upgrade it to 11.0 using
zypper. Beware, 10.3 is badly broken for ppc32, as there are some
packages with direct 64bit dependencies, which mess up the system. So
install a minimal 10.3, do not run online upgrade during installation,
and once ready, remove any 64bit packages:
rpm -e itrace
rpm -qa '*-64bit*' | xargs rpm -e --nodeps --noscripts
rpm -qa '*ppc64*' | xargs rpm -e --nodeps --noscripts
Then replace the 10.3 installation sources with 11.0 and first upgrade
rpm (zypper -v in rpm), then upgrade zypper (zypper -v in zypper), and
then the rest of the distro (zypper -v dup).
If you run into any problems, please let me know!
Bye,
CzP
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[Olaf Hering]

On Tue, Jun 24, Peter Czanik wrote:

> Hello,
>
>> 'inst32' stopped booting in early 11.0 alpha versions, so I stopped trying
>> it.

Or if you have already SuSE installed, copy the inst32 to your local
harddrive, add it to lilo.conf and boot it via yaboot.

Add something like this to lilo.conf:

image=/mydirectory/inst32
   label=i110
   append="sysrq=1 quiet "
   optional

yaboot is also able to load and start the file via tftp.
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Hi Olaf,

thanks for your message!

On 06/24/2008 10:52 AM, Olaf Hering wrote:

> Or if you have already SuSE installed, copy the inst32 to your local
> harddrive, add it to lilo.conf and boot it via yaboot.
>
> Add something like this to lilo.conf:
>
> image=/mydirectory/inst32
>    label=i110
>    append="sysrq=1 quiet "
>    optional
>
> yaboot is also able to load and start the file via tftp.

I also tried starting the installation by copying inst32 from the DVD to the
hard disk and adding an entry for inst32 to the OFW menu - I currently don't
use LILO on that box. I currently run Debian 4.0 on there.

It started booting (again the spinner was active for a while) and then
stopped, similar to when I tried booting from the DVD. Are you saying that
using LILO and yaboot is a *requirement* for getting inst32 to start on Pegasos?

Bye,
        LenZ
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Hi Peter,

On 06/24/2008 08:02 AM, Peter Czanik wrote:

> That was me :) 'inst32' does not boot on the Pegasos any more :-( What
> you can do is installing a minimal 10.3 and upgrade it to 11.0 using
> zypper. Beware, 10.3 is badly broken for ppc32, as there are some
> packages with direct 64bit dependencies, which mess up the system. So
> install a minimal 10.3, do not run online upgrade during installation,
> and once ready, remove any 64bit packages:
> rpm -e itrace
> rpm -qa '*-64bit*' | xargs rpm -e --nodeps --noscripts
> rpm -qa '*ppc64*' | xargs rpm -e --nodeps --noscripts
> Then replace the 10.3 installation sources with 11.0 and first upgrade
> rpm (zypper -v in rpm), then upgrade zypper (zypper -v in zypper), and
> then the rest of the distro (zypper -v dup).

Ugh, I was really hoping that there is a simpler procedure than that...

Since I already have a running (Debian) system, I wonder if I could bootstrap
the installation from there somehow?

> If you run into any problems, please let me know!

Thanks! It seems like PPC does not really have a high priority for openSUSE
anymore, if things have been "badly broken" in 10.3 already and it now even
doesn't boot anymore. Or is it only that bad on the Pegasos?

Bye,
        LenZ
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 Lenz Grimmer <lenz@...>                             -o)
 [ICQ: 160767607 | Jabber: LenZGr@...]                /\\
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[Olaf Hering]

On Tue, Jun 24, Lenz Grimmer wrote:

> It started booting (again the spinner was active for a while) and then
> stopped, similar to when I tried booting from the DVD. Are you saying that
> using LILO and yaboot is a *requirement* for getting inst32 to start on Pegasos?

Only yaboot is the requirement, any recent yaboot binary will do it.

The image inst32 is too big, it will overwrite parts of the firmware AFAIK.
yaboot will find a suitable memory region for the inst32/inst64 files
and run them.
If inst32/inst64 is loaded directly from the firmware prompt, it will be
loaded at the hardcoded ELF link address. ELF has no concept of 'load
and run me anywhere' for relocateable static binaries.

Olaf
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[Peter Czanik]

Hello,

Lenz Grimmer írta:
> Ugh, I was really hoping that there is a simpler procedure than that...
Me too, but see below...

> Since I already have a running (Debian) system, I wonder if I could
> bootstrap
> the installation from there somehow?
Olaf? Or, if that helps, I can upload a 11.0 base system, but that takes
days to upload using ADSL...

> > If you run into any problems, please let me know!
>
> Thanks! It seems like PPC does not really have a high priority for
> openSUSE
> anymore, if things have been "badly broken" in 10.3 already and it now
> even
> doesn't boot anymore. Or is it only that bad on the Pegasos?
"badly broken" referred to 32bit PPC support in general, not to Pegasos.
As far as I could understand from various bugzilla remarks, only 64bit
IBM servers are officially supported by SuSE, the rest is just a hobby
project for Olaf & Co. But this part was fixed for 11.0.
Pegasos is another story: it was discontinued by Genesi for almost two
years now (some vital parts were not available in a RoHS compliant
form), so no wonder, that openSUSE is slowly fading away. A successor is
EFIKA ( http://www.pegasosppc.com/efika.php ), which is a lightweight
machine, and pretty well supported now by 11.0. And there is a Freescale
MPC8610 based board planned ( http://en.opensuse.org/MPC8610 ), which is
a lot faster than Pegasos and uses less than 2/3 of the electricity, but
this is still a work in progress, something for 11.1, just as some
MPC5121 based boards. See http://bbrv.blogspot.com/ and
http://www.powerdeveloper.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=10979#10979 One of
these is on the post for me :-)
Bye,
CzP
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[Peter Czanik]

Olaf Hering írta:

> On Tue, Jun 24, Lenz Grimmer wrote:
>
>  
>> It started booting (again the spinner was active for a while) and then
>> stopped, similar to when I tried booting from the DVD. Are you saying that
>> using LILO and yaboot is a *requirement* for getting inst32 to start on Pegasos?
>>    
>
> Only yaboot is the requirement, any recent yaboot binary will do it.
>  

OK, just testing it: I copied yaboot, yaboot.cnf, yaboot.txt and inst32
from the suseboot directory to the root directory of an ext3 partition.
Then just 'boot hd:0 yaboot' and yaboot started. Entered 'install', and
the openSUSE 11.0 installer started without any problems.
Bye,
CzP
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[Peter Czanik]

Hello,
Also, a crash bug remained in the installer, which can be worked around
with a driver update. Just add the following parameter to 'install' in
yaboot: dud=http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.0/driverupdate
Other way package selection crashes the installer once the 'OK' button
pushed.
Bye,
CzP
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[Larry Stotler]

On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 7:05 AM, Peter Czanik <pczanik@...> wrote:
> "badly broken" referred to 32bit PPC support in general, not to Pegasos. As
> far as I could understand from various bugzilla remarks, only 64bit IBM
> servers are officially supported by SuSE, the rest is just a hobby project
> for Olaf & Co. But this part was fixed for 11.0.

I managed to get around that by just tabooing any 64bit packages
before installing with 10.3.  After that, it was completely stable on
all my 32bit Powermacs.  However, after I started beta testing v11.0,
I dumpled 10.3 completely.  The packager in 11.0 is amazingly fast.

As for PPC, it is an "official" port, and lists all the PPC procs from
the 601 forward.  I've bugged for a while to see if they were going to
drop support for older PPC chips, but so far they haven't.  I'm
running v11.0 on my son's Wallstreet G3/266.  It's slow, but stable.
Otherthan the annoying backlight issue(which I THINK is because I need
to replace the PRAM battery.  If that doesn't work, then it's just a
bug in the machine..... *sigh*), it runs just fine.  Been using it as
a SaMBa server for the last few weeks with no problems.  Even has
built-in UPS  ;-)
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Hi,

Peter, thanks a lot for your support and testing!

On 06/24/2008 02:03 PM, Peter Czanik wrote:

> OK, just testing it: I copied yaboot, yaboot.cnf, yaboot.txt and inst32
> from the suseboot directory to the root directory of an ext3 partition.
> Then just 'boot hd:0 yaboot' and yaboot started. Entered 'install', and
> the openSUSE 11.0 installer started without any problems.

Ah, that sounds doable :)
As these files (incl. yaboot) are included in the "suseboot" directory of the
DVD as well, wouldn't it be sufficient to boot from the DVD by entering "boot
cd suseboot/yaboot" at the OFW prompt?

Bye,
        LenZ
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[Peter Czanik]

Hello,

Larry Stotler írta:
> I managed to get around that by just tabooing any 64bit packages
> before installing with 10.3.  After that, it was completely stable on
> all my 32bit Powermacs.
That's right, but for anybody not fully aware of this problem before
installation, this was a serious problem. Luckily it is fixed now, and
openSUSE 11.0 installs properly on any of my 32bit PPC machines!
Bye,
CzP
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[Olaf Hering]

On Tue, Jun 24, Lenz Grimmer wrote:

>
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>
> Hi,
>
> Peter, thanks a lot for your support and testing!
>
> On 06/24/2008 02:03 PM, Peter Czanik wrote:
>
> > OK, just testing it: I copied yaboot, yaboot.cnf, yaboot.txt and inst32
> > from the suseboot directory to the root directory of an ext3 partition.
> > Then just 'boot hd:0 yaboot' and yaboot started. Entered 'install', and
> > the openSUSE 11.0 installer started without any problems.
>
> Ah, that sounds doable :)
> As these files (incl. yaboot) are included in the "suseboot" directory of the
> DVD as well, wouldn't it be sufficient to boot from the DVD by entering "boot
> cd suseboot/yaboot" at the OFW prompt?

yaboot can not read from the cd via the openfirmware filesystem driver.
An isofs driver for yaboot would fix this, so far I did not have to time
to implement this.
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[Peter Czanik]

Hello,

Lenz Grimmer írta:
> As these files (incl. yaboot) are included in the "suseboot" directory
> of the
> DVD as well, wouldn't it be sufficient to boot from the DVD by
> entering "boot
> cd suseboot/yaboot" at the OFW prompt?
No, as yaboot support for cd/dvd is not implemented in the Pegasos2
firmware. Also putting these files in a directory does not seem to work
(might work with editing of yaboot.cnf, but I looked for the easiest
solution).
Bye,
CzP
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[Larry Stotler]

On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 10:33 AM, Peter Czanik <pczanik@...> wrote:
> That's right, but for anybody not fully aware of this problem before
> installation, this was a serious problem. Luckily it is fixed now, and
> openSUSE 11.0 installs properly on any of my 32bit PPC machines!

Yeah, 10.1's kernel broke support for Old World Macs.  10.2 broke the
Wallstreet's backlight support.  10.3 had issues with 64/32bit.  v11.0
looks to have finally ironed out most of the issues.  Oh well, since
they didn't add PPC support back in until 10.0, I guess we can't
complain too much that there were some problems.  10.0 was pretty
solid all the way around tho.

Other than wanting CD media, v11.0's been mostly solid.  I've had a
few minor issues on my Celeron DC E1200 with networking, but haven't
had time to figure them out yet.
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[Peter Czanik]

Hello,

Larry Stotler írta:
> Other than wanting CD media, v11.0's been mostly solid.
Yes, 11.0 seems to be the best PPC release ever, at least from the
Genesi point of view :-) A big thanks to Olaf and the openSUSE PPC team!

CD: I can try to create an install CD for you, if you really need it.
There is a 'yast2 product creator', which had a number of bugs when last
tested, but with some tweaks, I could create working install CDs.

Bye,
CzP
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