Lenny is out, but i'm surprised to see that no one is covering it here, no news, nothing.
The end of an era ?

I tried it on my pegasos2 for fun but again, if the installation process works effortlessly, the OpenFirmware is unable to read (and boot) the content of the ext3 partitions created with the debian installer.

any idea how to fix it ? (the partitions still mount under MorphOS)

Hi.

You can make a small /boot partition in ext2 and use that to boot from.



Best regards,
Johan

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Johan Dams, Genesi USA Inc.
Director, Software Engineering

Yep, I have a blog... PurpleAlienPlanet

Well, we used to get support through Sven's work but he's not in the Debian team anymore.

Your best bet for Pegasos or Efika support these days is pretty much openSUSE 11.1 - it has it's quirks but works. Rhyme intended.
The reason it's broken is because the firmware only supports 128-byte inodes, and in recent months someone decided that mkfs.ext2 should create 256-byte inodes by default, to make ext4 work in the future.

This is on the premise that "oh, all the bootloaders and firmwares we care about can be updated", but even then it took a couple of Linux distributions into the next release cycle to catch up.

SuSE passes the "-I 128" argument if it's creating partitions on Pegasos. The Lenny installer should be doing the same, but as usual, nobody considered anything outside of their own little worldview (including commercial applications such as Norton Ghost).

Making an ext2 partition won't fix a thing; Lenny will still create a 256-byte inode filesystem. The fix is to create partitions from the rescue system (using parted and mkfs.ext2 -I 128) and give them to the Lenny installer - DON'T use the partitioner or create filesystems from the installer.

_________________
Matt Sealey

What Neko said - I'll be more verbose next time...

_________________
Johan Dams, Genesi USA Inc.
Director, Software Engineering

Yep, I have a blog... PurpleAlienPlanet

very clear, thanks matt.
sure, but using OpenSuse 11. with Gnome is painfully slow on a pegasos (tried that), very usable with XFCE though. I've always found debian more responsive (not as much as gentoo though, but gentoo is dead, rip)


EDIT : creating ext2 instead of ext3 partitions with the debian installer works. I can access the content of it in OF.

I have successfully installed Debian Linux 5.0 Lenny on my PegasosPPC II G4 machine :D
I works, but I had partition prepared using HDConfig in MorphOS 2.2...
I think that Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid is better (I used Debian 4.0 Etch, but I switched to Ubuntu 8.10).
I have openSUSE 11.1 installed too ;)

I want more :D :D

Simobi works for me too - thanks to OF 1.2 update.

Maybe I will try AmigaOS 4.1 & AROS soon...
PegasosPPC II is superior machine :)
Thanks Genesi/bPlan for creating this platform.
I pray for the next PowerPC successor (8610) every day :)
I wish you good luck! (generally ;)

P.S.: I mounted Debian Lenny partition under MorphOS 2.2 and copied boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-powerpc to my general small "boot" partition (FFS).

_________________
Czech PowerPC User Group - http://powerpc.lukysoft.cz
MorphOS Software database - http://morphos.lukysoft.cz/en

...maybe it is just because you are so enthusiastic; maybe it is just because you have one of the best support sites on the web; maybe it is just because you hosted a great PowerDev Meeting; maybe it is just because we like you. Thanks Luky!

You can be sure if we get to NEXT, you are coming with us.

R&B :)

_________________
http://bbrv.blogspot.com

???

Can you create mini-howto about this?
On http://www.debian.org/releases/lenny/po ... #id2777405 this page i read next: "2.1.2.4. CHRP subarchitecture (unsupported): Genesi Pegasos I, Pegasos II"
Or you found custom kernel?

_________________
wintel free

Debian 5.0 Lenny installation on Genesi PegasosPPC II:

This is my how to...

0) FYI: I prepared partitons for Linux in MorphOS, because MorphOS is my main system, I use RDB (not FAT) on my disk and there are FFS and SFS partitions. I can try another way for you, I don't know, if it's necassary to prepare it in MorphOS, but it's definitely safer for me (my first Linux installation on Pegasos I G3 (2003) destroyed my MorphOS data because RDB partitioning in Linux was experimental). But I think, that you use MorphOS too, so this should be no problem for you too... Or you can use only MorphOS CD. Later, I can try installation again on another disk without MorphOS preparation, if it works too.

HDConfig - partition #1 preparation (root):
Filesystem - select Custom
ID: 0x4c4e5800 ... ext2 (without OF problems)
or ID: 0x45585403 ... ext3 (see [16] below)

HDConfig - partition #2 preparation (swap):
Filesystem - select Custom
ID: 0x53575000 ... swap

Save.

1) Download Debian 5.0 PowerPC ISO DVD:

http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/5.0 ... -DVD-1.iso

and burn it.

2) Boot installation:

There is a special boot image for Genesi Pegasos II, it's on Debian 5.0 Lenny DVD by default - file install/pegasos.

OF:
boot cd install/pegasos

3) press 1 (install)

... wait - booting ...

4) Choose language: English
5) Choose country: United States
6) Keymap to use: American English

... wait - scanning CD-ROM ...

7) Configure the network:
a) select "eth0: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II]"
b) hostname: debian
c) domain name: (nothing)

8) Configure the clock

9) Partition disks

If it says some warning because of MorphOS disk, press Ignore.

select Manual

select partition for root ... [ENTER]
use as: [ENTER]
.. ext3 journaling file system (see [16] below)
.. or ext2 file system (without OF problems)
mount point: [ENTER] ... / the root file system
done setting up the partition

Remember the partition number.

select partition for swap (automatically)

"finish partitioning and write changes to disk"
Warning: select [YES] write the changes to disks

10) Installing the base system

... wait - installing the base system ...

11) Set up users and passwords

root password: ***
re-enter password to verify: ***
full name for the new user: Lukas Stehlik - write your name ;)
username for your account: Luky
choose a password for the new user: ***
re-enter password to verify: ***

12) Configuring apt

... wait - scanning the CD-ROM ...

scan another CD or DVD?: No
use a network mirror: No (for now)

13) Select and install software

participate in the package usage survey? yes/no

choose software to install:
* desktop environment
* standard system

[TAB] ... Continue ... [ENTER]

... wait - retrieving 768 files ... preparing, installing, configuring ... be patient

14) select "Continue without boot loader"

Message wth new OF configuration
and/or Debian 5 one line OF boot command

f.e.:
boot hd:4 boot/vmlinuz-2.6-26-1-powerpc root=/dev/hdd5

(ignore "<unknown path>" strings instead of "hd")

Continue.

15) Finishing the installation

Is the system clock set to UTC? Yes/No

Eject DVD and press Continue.

If you select ext2 filesystem, you can directly boot instaled Debian system now:

f.e.
boot hd:4 boot/vmlinuz-2.6-26-1-powerpc root=/dev/hdd5

16) OF and boot file ext3 problem - solution

There is a problem, that OF can't read directly boot/vmlinuz-2.6-26-1-powerpc file from large ext3 Debian partition (OF 1.2).

Download this boot image:
http://powerpc.lukysoft.cz/data/debian5 ... -1-powerpc

and use it to boot from OF readable partition - ext2, FFS, SFS... f.e. I use small FFS 1 GB partition only for boot images (MorphOS, Ubuntu 8.10, openSUSE, Debian 5, Simobi, ...) and there is created "menu" boot image too for multiple boot menu (no need to write long boot commands).

boot hd:X boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-powerpc root=/dev/hdYZ

where X is number of OF readable partition,
where hdYZ is the same as in the last installation message (f.e. hdd5 - Debian 5 partition).

Note: File vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-powerpc is from my Pegasos II Debian 5 installation - I used MorphOS Ext2/3 driver (FilesystemPack) and Mounter utility for mounting fresh ext3 Debian 5 partition to the MorphOS 2 and then I copied file boot/vmlinuz-2.6-26-1-powerpc to OF readable partition. If you want to use ext3 filesystem, I think that downloading the boot file from my page is easier for you.

I have just successfully installed two times Debian 5.0 Lenny (ext2 and ext3 partition) on my Genesi PegasosPPC II machine, it works - I hope that this how-to will help you.

_________________
Czech PowerPC User Group - http://powerpc.lukysoft.cz
MorphOS Software database - http://morphos.lukysoft.cz/en

I had the opposite experience a couple of years ago with MorphOS, it destroyed some of my Linux partitions with a few weeks worth of work on them.

Back to topic: one can create a small ext2 partition for booting. Just make sure, that inode size is 128, so if you use a rescue system (like the one from openSUSE: http://www.powerdeveloper.org/forums/vi ... 1226#11226 ), use:

_________________
CzP
http://czanik.blogs.balabit.com/

Wouldn't it be possible to boot Lenny from the "rescue" installer and get to GNU parted to do this?

FYI an alternative would be to create an ext2 partition mapped as /boot and use any filesystem you like for /root (I prefer XFS for example, it's faster, but I reckon ext4 or btrfs will be pretty good before the end of the year)

I also absolutely loathe the idea of soaking up disk space for swap partitions; a relic from the days of installing many Linux distributions on a PC where they needed to be primary partitions to boot properly (and the same goes for Efika/Pegasos which will not boot from an Extended/Logical MBR partition).

My /boot drive is usually a couple of gigabytes so I can mess around with lots of kernel builds and other installers and toys, and I put the swap file there (dd if=/dev/zero of=/boot/swap bs=16384 count=16384 for 1GB, make sure you mkswap /boot/swap afterwards) and modify fstab after the install has proceeded.

I thought I would bring this up here too, does anyone want to work on an AROS/power2people bounty to port FFS and SFS to FUSE filesystems? They needn't be open source (unless you plan not to maintain them after the bounty, in which case it should be handed off to the community) but I think relying on MorphOS and kernel drivers in Linux is kind of frustrating for a lot of users, especially when setting up AROS requires a Linux box capable of reading (maybe RDB) FFS, SFS which is entirely uncommon outside of PowerPC.
Thanks Luky :)

_________________
Matt Sealey

I just thought I'd might as well post my little guide to installing Debian Lenny on my Pegasos, it's not as good as some of the above, but I hope it'll help someone.

Half hearted install guide for the Pegasos II:-

Download and burn the the debian-500-powerpc-netinst.iso

escape from the OF menu,

put in the Debian CD

in OF
"boot cd install/pegasos"

Choose your lanaguage

As you're installing the files from the internet you need to select the ethernet port, I use the Rhine-II one, make sure you're using DHCP on your router, and cable is plugged in

Select the name of your computer I call it debian-pegasos but you call it whatever you want, I don't have a domain so I leave that blank.

Now comes the trick bit Partition disk, select manual-

1 Select free space, create a new partition say about 2 gig
Change "use as" from EXT3 to EXT2 file system and mount point from '/' to '/boot, and set the bootable flag. This is the boot partiton
2: Create a new partition, say 50gb, this can use EXT3 and is mount point '/' this is for the actual system
3 create a new partition say 2 gb, use as Swap

And that'll do.

One thing to watch is that they have to be Primary Partitions, not Windows system extended partitions, I was setting up on a boot with existing Amiga Partitions, so it created the correct type, I'm not sure it will on a fresh disk, you may have to tell it make Primary Partitions.

After that,
set up your root password, and yourself as normal user, select a nearby package provider, I'd advise just installing the default packages. Give it a while to download them.

Skip the grub installer, but write down what it says at the end, you will need to type that in to boot into linux!

If your using the above 3 partitions it should be
boot hd:0 vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-powerpc root=/dev/hda2

I *think*..

thanks to Lucky i could install Debian successfuly on my peg2 and was happy to see that it's pretty much faster then OpenSuse on the same hardware, no fancy themes and other heavy stuff.

nice ! feels good to be back on the good old debian (i wish there could be a Gentoo revival).

It's REALLY not the themes that make the difference..

_________________
Matt Sealey