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

[Wolf J. Flywheel]

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.

	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"

	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?

	(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.)

	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.  :)

-- 
// Carl Hudkins :: ICQ 5723399 :: PGP 50238D9E
//
// "Romulan spies, Romulan spies / Without honor in the Klingons' eyes
//  Wanna destroy the Enterprise / Romulan spies"
//  		(To the tune of "Particle Man", by They Might Be Giants)

--
gentoo-ppc-user@g.o mailing list