Re: [gentoo-ppc-user] Greetings & Power Mac questions :)

[tom]

Wolf J. Flywheel wrote:
> Hi, PPC folks...
>
> 	Ok, after using Gentoo for several months and being quite happy with it,
> somebody laid a Power Mac 8600 on me and I'm playing with it trying to
> get Gentoo-ppc installed... just for the heck of it, nothing
> mission-critical here.  :)
>
> 	The documentation for the PPC install feels a little less thorough than
> it was for x86, but since I already (thought) I knew what I was doing, I
> proceeded to install BootX (in System 7.5.5, which I updated from
> apple.com, as I have *no* official CDs) and get into the procedure.  One
> deviation from the procedure on the Web site: I did "emerge distcc" right
> before "emerge system" -- but then setting up cross-compiling on my main
> box (dual P3/800) proved much more hairy than I had thought, so that's
> all I did with distcc.  (I.e., it's not added to FEATURES in make.conf or
> anything.)
> 	The two apparent problems were when I used rc-update to add metalog and
> net.eth0 to default runlevel -- lots of "fatal" errors from awk,
> supposedly at line 3 of something, but in the scripts I examined
> (rc-update.sh, for example) line 3 is a comment.  However, I did get the
> "added to runlevel" message so I figured it worked.
>
> 	"emerge ppc-sources" pulled down 2.4.20-ppc-r3, which is one minor
> version ahead of what I'm running here.
>
> 	I got on down to the kernel build, and this is where I became lost,
> because although I'm supposed to make sure some settings under "Macintosh
> Device Drivers", this part of the config menu does not expand when I try
> to enter it.  I edited the config file by hand and my first build attempt
> failed with "undefined reference to ???pmu_driver", so I edited again
> more thoroughly.  I had to do "make mrproper" after that, but my second
> try completed successfully; "vmlinux" and System.map were created in
> /usr/src/linux, so I copied these to my "/mnt/macos/System Folder/Linux
> Kernels" and went on.  Aside from the aforementioned awk errors, things
> looked ok until I attempted to reboot.

you want support for cuda based powermacs checked and support for adb 
raw keycodes unchecked. I have no idea as to why it would not expand.

>
> 	One of the things the documentation leaves out is, whether you need to
> copy an initrd.img over to the System folder.  Since the kernel and
> System.map were placed in the top-level directory, it seemed obvious to
> copy those over, but as no initrd appeared, I was unsure about that.
> There *is* an initrd.img in the System folder, which came from the
> Gentoo-ppc LiveCD, but in "Linux Kernels" are only the vmlinux and
> System.map I just made.
> 	The documentation also says to open BootX control panel, and uncheck the
> RAM disk in Options.  Then, "when you return to the BootX main screen,
> you will now find an option to specify your machine's root disk and
> partition."  This is not so; I only have a field where I can type options
> to pass to the kernel upon booting it.  I left the default of "rw" alone.
> Booting in this way results in a kernel panic:
>
> "VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 08:01"

as you surmised, the kernel is unable to find /
there is a BootX how-to at http://penguinppc.org/projects/bootx/
click the Options button and uncheck use specified ramdisk in the popup 
dialog - click OK
the main screen of BootX should return with a dialog field where you can 
  enter sdc4 and below it a larger field where you can pass any 
additional arguments to the kernel. 'devfs=mount' comes to mind if your 
kernel is so inclined. You do not have to copy an initrd anywhere, 
unless you have one set up as a rescue disk (a la debian), or some other 
specialized purpose (such as install).

>
> 	Now, my / is on /dev/sdc4, which is an external SCSI drive (ID 6), so I'm
> not surprised this doesn't work.  I tried to find other BootX settings,
> but opening the BootX App control panel manually doesn't give me anything
> other than what I saw before.  Should I be passing arguments via the
> little text field each time I start up?

see above

>
> 	(A diffuculty I have in messing with this Mac is that each time I start
> up with Extensions enabled, it tries to connect to a shared drive that
> does not exist in its new environment.  As my only options there are
> Cancel and Ok, but the box immediately comes back no matter which one I
> press, I'm unable to get to the Chooser in order to get rid of this
> auto-connect drive.  If I start with Extensions off, I can't do anything
> with sharing as File Sharing, Open Transport, etc. are not available.  I
> seem to be stuck.)

start up with ext off and remove the offending pref file from the system 
folder>preferences folder. I'm sorry I can't be more useful as to the 
name of said file, it's been a while since I did 7.5 :)

>
> 	Anyway, anyone willing to discuss my woes is welcomed; I'd like to keep
> playing with this critter, but I seem to have hit a stumbling block.  :)
>

HTH,

tom


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