Subject: root-be-0.03.tar.gz

From: Alex deVries <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 13:59:21 -0500 (EST)

I've uploaded root-be-0.03.tar.gz to the GettingStarted directory, and I
cleared the GettingStarted directory of older versions of root-be-0.02 and
00 (they're in the ../old directory).

This contains:
- fdisk
- mke2fs, swapon, swapoff, mkswap
- ld.so
- rpm version 2.4.12

This does not contain:
- gcc, binutils
- a lot of other stuff

I can already see some things that should go into 0.04..

Some things to work on:
- get a more modern version of vmlinux with efs for both scache'd and
  non-scache'd machines
- make Linux-installer-0.1c with root-be-0.03.tar.gz (with Mike's
  permission)
- document all this (damn, I wish I had another SCSI disk to practice
  installs)

- Alex

-- 
      Alex deVries          Run Linux on everything,
  System Administrator      run everything on Linux.
   The EngSoc Project       Send spam to [email-masked].

---

From: Mike Shaver <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 19:38:31 +0000

> I can already see some things that should go into 0.04..

It would be nice if there was a really minimal root-be with just enough
to get a network configured and then start pulling stuff down via RPM. 
That was my goal with the Linux-installer, although we could have two
versions, too.
 
> - get a more modern version of vmlinux with efs for both scache'd and

I _must_ start working on EFS again.  I assume I've missed the 2.2
freeze, but I could still help a lot of people by getting off my a** and
finishing it.  My apologies to those who are waiting on it.

> - make Linux-installer-0.1c with root-be-0.03.tar.gz (with Mike's

Sold!
Note that you'll have to make a cpio of it, because that's all the
installer understands.  Also, if you talk to Alan about how to fix the
installer to do devices correctly, things will get a little simpler.

> - document all this (damn, I wish I had another SCSI disk to practice

I have one, and the work Indy survived the layoffs (woohoo!), so I'll be
back to work on that stuff shortly (cross your fingers =) ).

Mike

-- 
509756.92 504401.08

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From: [email-masked] (Alan Cox)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 20:26:44 +0000 (GMT)

> finishing it.  My apologies to those who are waiting on it.

You've not missed it providing your code doesnt have to touch the fs
layer as well as fs/efs. Certainly el penguino took the ADFS patch for
2.1.80

Alan

---

From: Alex deVries <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 01:04:19 -0500 (EST)

> That was my goal with the Linux-installer, although we could have two

I really need a minimalist version of it, too, for the RH-like installer.
I'm working on it.

> finishing it.  My apologies to those who are waiting on it.

Let me know if I can help.

Here's a question:  is it possible to boot off of the local disk without
the image being on an EFS partition? Will I ever be able to have my
machine have no EFS partition? How will ARC find the image?

> > - make Linux-installer-0.1c with root-be-0.03.tar.gz (with Mike's

Tomorrow..  I promise.

> > - document all this (damn, I wish I had another SCSI disk to practice

I'm bidding right now on another SCSI disk, so I should be setup for it
soon.

- Alex

---

From: Mike Shaver <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 06:11:16 +0000

> machine have no EFS partition? How will ARC find the image?

Could we not modify sash to know about ext2?
I thought I read somewhere that we could get sash sources/info, which
would help a lot.

Mike

-- 
548137.65 541127.34

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From: [email-masked] (Alan Cox)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 10:29:15 +0000 (GMT)

> machine have no EFS partition? How will ARC find the image?

Using the Linux initrd stuff. To get the ARC loader to load it all you
end up doing

char __initdata initrd_block[]={
#include "bootdisk.hex.h"
};

8)

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From: Oliver Frommel <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 13:04:30 +0100 (MET)

> I thought I read somewhere that we could get sash sources/info, which

sash is located in the volumen header afaik(?)
wouldn't it be possible to replace sash by another (possibly free) bootloader?

o.

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From: "William J. Earl" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 10:18:56 -0800

> wouldn't it be possible to replace sash by another (possibly free) bootloader?

     Yes, you can easily replace sash, and the replacement need not even
be called sash, since you can 

	setenv -p OSLoader xyz

to change the name the PROM will use for the boot loader to "xyz".  The
IRIX tool for updating the volume header is dvhtool.

---

From: Alistair Lambie <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 09:39:59 +1300

> machine have no EFS partition? How will ARC find the image?
Couldn't we just put the vmlinux in the volume header and load it from
there....in fact you probably wouldn't even need sash.  Use dvhtool under irix
to add the image.  You may need to make a bigger volume header to fit it.  I'm
not 100% sure if this will work, but it's worth a try.

Cheers, Alistair

-- 
Alistair Lambie                         [email-masked]
Silicon Graphics New Zealand                SGI Voicemail: 2431455
Level 5, Cigna House,                           Ph: +64-4-494 6325
40 Mercer St, Wellington, NZ                   Fax: +64-4-494 6321

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From: "William J. Earl" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 13:37:23 -0800

> not 100% sure if this will work, but it's worth a try.
...

       vmlinux probably will not fit without repartitioning.  Also, except
for early development, that is pretty tedious.  I would assume that production
Indy linux systems would have just the volume header and linux partitions,
with no IRIX.

---

From: Alistair Lambie <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 11:18:16 +1300

> Indy linux systems would have just the volume header and linux partitions,

Pro's and Con's:

1. You don't need any boot loader...no sash etc, just use the PROM to load
direct from the volume header.

2. You need to repartition....is that a big problem (and I'm not sure you would
need to repartition if you strip the other stuff out of the vh).

3. We need to 'clone' dvhtool for linux...only needs the ability to move the
vmlinux image to the vh.  Would this be hard?

My assumptions are that you can actually load the kernel from PROM (?) and that
it wouldn't be too hard to clone dvhtool.  

Cheers, Alistair

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 04:57:25 +0100

> wouldn't it be possible to replace sash by another (possibly free) bootloader?

Basically we could Milo for the Indy also.  Milo even has the required
features to be built as ECOFF executable thus supporting old machines
where the ARC proms can't load ELF.

Q: What filesystem types are supported directly by the ARC firmware in the
ROMs?

  Ralf

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From: "William J. Earl" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 09:43:11 -0800

> Q: What filesystem types are supported directly by the ARC firmware in the

      In general, just bootp over Ethernet, tape files, and the volume header.
Some machines support floppy (DOS?) and CDROM (iso9660).

---

From: Thomas Bogendoerfer <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 23:24:20 +0100

> Q: What filesystem types are supported directly by the ARC firmware in the

is there a way to do a raw disk access via ARC firmware ? Mabye we could
use some bits from SILO (Sparc Linux Loader) and get ext2fs access this
way. 

Thomas.

-- 
See, you not only have to be a good coder to create a system like Linux,
you have to be a sneaky bastard too ;-)
                   [Linus Torvalds in <[email-masked]>]

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 14:16:27 +0100

> use some bits from SILO (Sparc Linux Loader) and get ext2fs access this

That´s one way.  Another would be to do it like the Alpha Milo.

Raw access should work by accessing something like
scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(0) or so.  Milo should actually already
provide all the framework required for easy implementation of ext2fs
access.

   Ralf

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From: Thomas Bogendoerfer <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 12:47:31 +0100

> That´s one way.  Another would be to do it like the Alpha Milo.

which would be IMHO a real overkill (Alpha Milo is nearly a complete
Linux kernel with some special stuff for bringing up the hardware). It 
makes sense for Alphas as there are ARC only machines out, and the 
ARC PAL code isn't suited for Linux. So you have to replace the PAL code and
after that the ARC firmware isn't able to do anything, so Alpha Milo has 
to boot the kernel itself. To this it needs to access the hardware and
as the Linux drivers has already been available, why not use them ?
Alpha Milo can also be used as the real firmware on some Alpha boards 
(I've flashed Alpha Milo, so my Alpha doesn't see any ARC stuff).
For Mips Milo we don't need to change PAL code change or other strange
stuff and with raw partition access we can do all what we want.

> provide all the framework required for easy implementation of ext2fs

good, I will to some tests:-)

Thomas.