[Howto] Installing a current release of Debian on Amiga

[adrian82]

Hi there,

I am one of the Debian Developer who is involved in helping to bring the m68k port of Debian back to life. Among the supported platforms of this port has always been the Amiga. The whole m68k port is currently no official port which means you can install it through official install mediums and the packages are hosted on debian-ports.org instead of debian.org.

Anyway, since we're glad to having more people use Debian on their m68k machines and Amigas, here's a short howto on getting Debian running on the Amiga. It's neither very thorough nor perfect and requires some expertise with Linux and AmigaOS, especially when it comes to partitioning hard disks.

Everything you need to type, type it without quotation marks.

What you need
===========

- any Amiga with a 68020 CPU with an MMU, an FPU is optional; the faster, the better
- a recent version of AmigaOS (3.1 or newer) with the most recent versions of HDToolBox and scsi.device (to be able to properly work with large drives >4 GB)
- at least 64MB of Fast RAM (haven't tested on 32 MB, might work as well)
- a hard disk with at least 4 GB (I recommended 40 GB at least)
- a PC running Linux (Debian is highly recommended since it ships all the useful packages required to work with the Amiga hard disk on the PC) with the possibility to hook up the Amiga hard disk (either IDE or SCSI)
- optional, but highly recommended: a network card supported on Linux/m68k (note: most PCMCIA card supported on Linux (PC) do not work on Linux/m68k, see: http://www.g-mb.de/pcmcia_e.html; Zorro II cards usually like the Ariadne work fine)
- optional, but highly recommended: a serial null modem cable hooking your Amiga to the PC running Linux

Installation
========

1. Prepare the hard disk of your Amiga with HDToolBox; create some space for the installation of AmigaOS (1 GB should be more than enough) and leave the rest empty
2. Take out the hard disk and hook it up to a PC running Debian Linux
3. On the Debian PC, install the package "amiga-fdisk-cross" ("apt-get install amiga-fdisk-cross" as root)
4. As root, run "amiga-fdisk" to create a root partition of at least 4 GB plus a swap partition on the Amiga hard disk (you can use this guide on "fdisk" to learn how to use "amiga-fdisk": http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Partition/fdisk_partitioning.html; "fdisk" is an old and simple tool for partitioning hard disks on Linux, "amiga-fdisk" is the version which supports Amiga partitions and is designed to be used in the same way as the conventional "fdisk")

NOTE: On the PC, the Amiga hard disk will probably be named "sdb": If your PC has one hard disk (which is named "sda") such that the second hard disk (the Amiga hard disk) will be called "sdb"; on the Amiga (when running Linux), there is only one hard disk and thus the disk will be named "sda" (this is important for the kernel boot command line later in the AmigaOS script "StartInstall"). Make always sure you are working on the correct disk when partitioning; it may even happen that your Amiga disk is named "sda" and your primary disk in your PC is named "sdb" while the Amiga disk is hooked up (Linux usually dynamically names the disks in the order it recognizes them!). You can use "dmesg | less" too see the kernel log which shows which disks were detected and how they were named or "cat /proc/partitions" to see the actual partitions on a disk and their sizes. Don't say you haven't been warned, BE CAREFUL!

5. Format the newly created root partition on the Amiga hard disk with ext4: "mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb2" (if the Amiga hard disk is recognized as "sdb" on your PC and the newly created root partition is "sdb2"; make sure to not confuse the device names, you might overwrite partitions of your PC; when in doubt, check "dmesg" or "cat /proc/partitions" to see which disk is your Amiga hard disk)
6. Mount the newly created root partition on the Amiga hard disk on your PC running Debian, for example: mount -t ext4 /dev/sdb2 /mnt
7. Change into the directory where the Amiga root partition was mounted: "cd /mnt"
8. wget http://people.debian.org/~tg/f/20121227/m68k-base.tgz
9. tar xzf m68k-base.tgz (extract the base filesystem)
10. mv m68k-base/* . (note the little dot; move all files into the root directory)
11. rmdir m68k-base (delete the empty directory)
12. cd && umount /mnt (change back to your home directory and unmount the Amiga root filesystem)
13. mount /dev/sdb1 -t affs /mnt (mount the AmigaOS partition on your Linux host)
14. cd /mnt
15. mkdir boot-debian
16. cd boot-debian
17. wget http://people.debian.org/~tg/f/20121227/vmlinuz-3.2.0-4-amiga (download the compressed kernel image for Amiga)
18. mv vmlinuz-3.2.0-4-amiga vmlinuz-3.2.0-4-amiga.gz && gunzip vmlinuz-3.2.0-4-amiga.gz (uncompress the compressed kernel image; required for Amiboot 5.6)
19. wget http://archive.debian.org/debian/dists/Debian-3.0/main/disks-m68k/current/amiga/amiboot-5.6
20. wget http://archive.debian.org/debian/dists/Debian-3.0/main/disks-m68k/current/amiga/StartInstall && wget http://archive.debian.org/debian/dists/Debian-3.0/main/disks-m68k/current/amiga/StartInstall.info
21. Use your favourite editor to edit StartInstall to contain the following:

"amiboot-5.6 -d -k vmlinuz-3.2.0-4-amiga root=/dev/sda2 fb=false"

If you would like output over serial console, add: console=ttyS0,9600n8:

"amiboot-5.6 -d -k vmlinuz-3.2.0-4-amiga root=/dev/sda2 fb=false console=ttyS0,9600n8"

22. cd && umount /mnt
23. Shutdown your Debian PC and take out the Amiga hard disk; hook it up to your Amiga and boot into AmigaOS
24. open up the hidden folder "boot-debian" on DH0:
25. double click "StartInstall" and see your Amiga boot into Debian Linux
26. when using a serial console, install and run minicom on the Debian PC, configure it to use the device "/dev/ttyS0" with 9600 bps (anything faster won't work!)

Have fun!

Adrian

[adrian82]

Thank you SO MUCH FOR THIS! Awesome

You're welcome!

what x window system can you use on amiga?

I assume you are talking about the supported window managers or desktop, as the term "X Window System" refers to the graphical user interface in general.

Of course, all window managers and desktops are supported that X supports which means all of the ones Debian is currently shipping. However, you rather want to use something light-weight as "twm" or "fvwm" as opposed to "KDE" or "GNOME" on your Amiga with its comparably slow CPU.

Note: Due to some bugs the X Window System has been broken on Linux/m68k since the XFree86-to-X.Org transition which means the current version of X.Org in Debian unstable does not work, you will have a text user interface for the time being.

However, there have been made some changes in the current X.Org development branch which fix most of these issues, thus, after a very long break of almost 10 years, the X Window System is soon going to be fully working for Linux on Amiga (and Atari) systems.

is aga supported?

All Amiga custom chipsets are supported: OCS, ECS and AGA. I am not sure about graphics cards, but I think these are supported as well since these usually sport standard chips which were also used on PC graphics cards.

Adrian

[adrian82]

Is it safe to assume you could also hook up the Amiga hard drive to your Debian PC using a USB-to-IDE or USB-to-SATA adapter?

Correct. I actually used the former adapter to hook up my Amiga 1200's internal hard disk drive to my Debian PC and do the partitioning, formatting and copying and extracting of the files.

And thanks for the update and tutorial.  I've been wanting to put a Linux or BSD on my A2000 with Blizzard 2060 for a LOOOOONG time.

You're welcome.

An Amiga sporting an 68060 is actually quite nice to run Linux. We have several 68060 Amigas used to compile packages for Debian m68k: http://unstable.buildd.net/index-m68k.html

Adrian

[adrian82]

Nice one Adrian.

You're welcome. I hope it will be of any use.

Is there any support for the Mediator PCI?

I'm afraid not. There doesn't seem to be a driver for PCI bridges on the Amiga. However, since Linux supports PCI in general, adapting the Linux kernel to support such PCI bridges would be possible. Someone "just" has to write the code for it.

I look forward to giving this a whirl - assuming the amiga still boots when I pull it out the loft!

Why shouldn't it? Amiga hardware is inredibly durable. And if it's broken, the fixes are usually trivial (replace faulty custom chips or resolder power connectors etc).

Adrian

[adrian82]

Also possible to play games, i.e. whdload?

Well, WHDLoad is an application for AmigaOS and will therefore not work on Linux. You can, however, install and run (nearly) any POSIX-compatible application and, of course, any of the Debian packages provided for m68k, see: http://www.debian-ports.org/. You can install all Debian packages that have been compiled for "m68k".

Would be a good option for a modern OS :-)

Linux is always a very good option, in my opinion. It's free, supports more hardware and architectures than any other operating system, is extremely customizable and fast. It's fascinating being able to run the same operating system on my phone, Raspberry Pi, Amiga, Mac Mini G4, laptop, desktop, digital satellite receiver and much more .

Oh and are PCMCIA wireless cards supported?

Well, they are and they are not. Linux supports tons of PCMCIA cards, be it SCSI, Ethernet or Wireless LAN. The problem is, however, that the Linux kernel does not use its generic PCMCIA stack (the piece of software between the PCMCIA card driver and the kernel) when running on the Amiga 600 and 1200, but alas a stripped down, Amiga-specific PCMCIA stack.

Now, the drivers in the Linux kernel supporting the various PCMCIA hardware are using the interface of the generic PCMCIA stack and are therefore not compatible with the Amiga-specific PCMCIA stack in the kernel, thus most PCMCIA cards are supported by Linux but not supported by Linux when running on an Amiga 600 or 1200.

There are, however, a small number of PCMCIA drivers in the Linux kernel which have been ported to the Amiga-specific PCMCIA stack. An incomplete list of supported PCMCIA cards can be found here: http://www.g-mb.de/pcmcia_e.html.

Other cards can be ported to work with little efforts. The D-Link DFE-670TXD, for example, is currently not supported on Linux/m68k but on Linux in general. Since this network card uses the generic NE-2000 register interface, it is possible to adapt the existing driver "apne.c" (http://lxr.linux.no/#linux+v3.9.5/drivers/net/ethernet/8390/apne.c) to support it. Something that we will work on in the near future, since I own this network card and I currently cannot use it on my Amiga 1200 running Linux/m68k.

So, while your specific wireless PCMCIA card is probably currently not supported, it can certainly made to work with little efforts. It's all a matter of people interested in such developments. In general, if there are enough people wanting to install and run Linux on their Amigas, someone might be inclined to port the generic PCMCIA stack to work on the Amiga which would mean that ALL PCMCIA cards supported by the Linux kernel would be usable on the Amiga running Linux/m68k as well.

Adrian

[adrian82]

This would be a good starting place for someone with the skills and inclination.

http://wiki.netbsd.org/users/rkujawa/amigapci/

This is actually neat, I didn't know that. Thanks a lot for the heads up. I am pretty sure that driver code could be ported to Linux.

Adrian

[adrian82]

3. On the Debian PC, install the package "amiga-fdisk-cross" ("apt-get install amiga-fdisk-cross" as root)
4. As root, run "amiga-fdisk" to create a root partition of at least 4 GB plus a swap partition on the Amiga hard disk (you can use this guide on "fdisk" to learn how to use "amiga-fdisk": http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Partition/fdisk_partitioning.html; "fdisk" is an old and simple tool for partitioning hard disks on Linux, "amiga-fdisk" is the version which supports Amiga partitions and is designed to be used in the same way as the conventional "fdisk")

I would like to add here, that, for a more convenient way, you can also install and use gparted which works absolutely fine with Amiga partition tables.

Just install it with "apt-get install gparted" and run gparted as root. Select the Amiga disk from the drop-down menu at the top right and create new partitions using the menu item "Partition->New".

Create a primary partition with your preferred size (20-30 GB should be enough) and format the disk using ext4, create another primary partition and format it as swap. In both cases, set the alignment to "Cylinder" instead of "MiB" as the partitiong will otherwise fail.

Once you're done, just click the green checkmark and gparted will properly partition the disk to be used in your Amiga.

Adrian

[adrian82]

This post and all the files need to be mirrored someplace. I can expect needing/wanting this in like 6 months and then files will be gone

I'll put it up in the Debian wiki.

Does this port of Debian run under systemd or sysvinit?

You can use upstart, sysvinit, openrc or systemd as you prefer.

Is there any support for the PowerPC addons?

If you mean PowerPC accelerators, of course. Debian doesn't tie the CPU to the rest of the hardware. You would just install the powerpc port of Debian.

Is the reason you're helping maintain the Debian port along the same lines as why NetBSD maintains their port?

I don't know what NetBSD's intentions are, but I do it for fun and to learn things. Why are you using an Amiga these days? Certainly not because it's more economical and faster than a PC you could get for the fraction of the cost of a fast Amiga.

Just a few questions from a former GNU/Linux user who moved on recently.

To what? Debian is still the most universal operating system you can get.

One question though, AmigaOS3.1 or 3.9 with tons of Amiga programs as well, easily fits on hard drives only 1gb in size.  Is Debian 68k really so large that it needs >4gb of hard drive space to be installed and have room for a few programs?

No. But since Debian has something around 30000 binary packages, there's lots of stuff you can try out and install. When you have a 160 GB disk available, what's the point in using just a fraction of the available disk space?

If the OS and program files are so large to need that much hard disk space, how can it run fast enough on a slow system, such as a 68020 Amiga, or Atari?

The amount of disk space used by an operating system has little to do on how fast it performs. I don't know where you got this idea from.

Adrian

[adrian82]

Reasons: Kernel is too old, driver structure has changed in newer kernels, nobody here with time to do the job.......

What?! The Linux kernel still fully supports PowerPC and if the drivers for Amiga hardware compile on m68k, they will compile on PowerPC as well.

Do you have a source for your claims? I don't have a PPC card myself, but I am running an up-to-date version of Debian unstable on my Mac Mini G4 PPC.

Adrian

[adrian82]

Just a short heads up: New base tarballs and kernel images can now be found on my Debian webspace.

See:

> http://people.debian.org/~glaubitz/chroots/

Cheers,
Adrian

[adrian82]

Oh boy, we have an event on January 21st but I'll never get time to have this ready. Would anyone be willing to share a hdf image I can boot on UAE and copy to a real HD?

https://www.facebook.com/events/1700892526899643/

I have never tried Debian/m68k on UAE yet, so I don't really know whether it works (it should work though if you enable MMU support).

In any case, I created a manual which explains how to install Debian/m68k in Aranym (Atari 68k emulator):

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=71530

Adrian

[adrian82]

Hi!

netboot-Installers can be found here [1] and here [2].

The link in [1] contain the installer builds built on the build machine network and may be outdated while [2] contains installer images that I am building manually.

Installation ISOs can be found in [3], always look for folder with the most recent date [3].

Note: Due to a technical limitation, the kernel of the netboot installer (not to confused with NETINST which is CD-based), may have issues finding kernel modules if the kernel module packages in the package archives mismatch the kernel in the netboot image. If that happens, the netboot images need to be rebuilt which I am trying to do on a regular basis.

PS: Feel free to invite the #debian-ports IRC channel on OFTC network if you have any questions to me or the other Debian developers working on the project.

Adrian

> [1] http://ftp.ports.debian.org/debian-ports/pool-m68k/main/d/debian-installer/
> [2] https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/debian-installer/m68k/
> [3] https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/

[adrian82]

Well... it seems to be really complicated to install Linux on an Amiga 1200... I have NO CDDrive and NO AmigaOS partitions... just an A1200 with PCMCIA Network or CF card and an empty harddrive...

That makes it indeed a bit complicated, yes.

I can start from a modified Workbench Floppy and mount the PCMCIA CF Card which contains the vmlinuz, inird, amiboot and the install script... the kernel boots up and installer starts... but thats it... no network, no access to the PCMCIA CF card...

What network card are you using? Not all PCMCIA network cards have driver support. See: http://www.g-mb.de/pcmcia_e.html

You see my problem? Maybe I did something wrong or its currently just not possible what I have in mind...

Yes, most likely your network card is not supported.

I recommend subscribing to the debian-68k mailing list (https://lists.debian.org/debian-68k/) and post there. You'll reach more Linux/m68k developers there and not jst me.

Adrian

[adrian82]

I have created a guide now how to install Debian/m68k inside qemu-system-m68k: https://wiki.debian.org/M68k/QemuSystemM68k

qemu is rather fast and depending on the hardware used, one can get an emulated 68040 with 1.5 GHz or more. Very useful for developing and testing m68k code.