[Howto] Installing a current release of Debian on Amiga

[Rotzloeffel]

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

this is what a former developper told me! You are right, powerPC is still supportet! But not for LinuxAPUS ! APUS support was dropped! latest working and available Kernel is 2.4.17 AFAIK !

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/linux/kernel/1327811

see the first two lines Geert Uytterhoeven wrote in 2011

[TeamBlackFox]

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

For my main desktop, FreeBSD. For portability, NetBSD or OpenBSD. NetBSD supports a significantly wider range of platforms, if I decide whatever the device traditionally runs is inferior to the NetBSD/OpenBSD port.

Nothing against Debian itself, my issues lie with the setup of GNU/Linux itself.
 
Thanks for answering my questions as I was just curious as how it compared to the Amiga/68k NetBSD port.

[esc]

This isn't a very practical idea at all. I'm admitting that up front so I don't want to hear the "why would you want to do that" crap. The reason: I just want to.

Would it be possible to do this in UAE? Just for fun / testing purposes?

[Thorham]

Would it be possible to do this in UAE? Just for fun / testing purposes?

Maybe WinUae, because it has MMU support.

[Dandy]

Hi there,

I am one of the Debian Developer who is involved in helping to bring the m68k port of Debian back to life.
...
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.
...

Great job, Adrian!
I made several attempts in the past to install Linux on my Amiga 4000 PPC with Mediator PCI board and Deneb USB 2.0, but had to give up each time. In the Mediator I have a Voodoo 4 graphics card, a 10/100 mBit NIC (with RTL chip) and a Terratec 512i digital soundcard.
I exclusively use the UW-SCSI Host of the CSPPC (HDs, CDs, DVD, tape streamer, scanner) - internal IDE disabled via Dongle.

I had to give up each time because of the sheer incredible and confusing amount of files I have to download to be able to install a Linux that supports as much as possible of MY hardware config.

I own a copy of the Amiga Unix compendium CDs, but didn't get far with that, either. The version on the CDs didn't have support for the UW-SCSCI Host of the CSPPC, wich I exclusively use.

I would have had to download a newer kernel, but was so confused as I didn't know which one. And also I was uncertain regarding the Bootstrap and which Linux distro I should/could use with my HW and so gave it up.

I do know that meanwhile there exists a Kernel that supports the UW-SCSI Host of the CSPPC, but neither do I know which Kernel that is, nor do I know if there is meanwhile also support for my Voodoo4, my 10/100 mBit NIC (with RTL chip) and my Terratec 512i digital in the Mediator and for the Deneb USB 2.0.

Without support for UW-SCSI, Mediator (for Vodoo4, 10/100 mBit NIC and Terratec 512i digital) and Deneb (USB 2.0) it really makes no sense to me to spend time on a Linux installation on my Amiga4000PPC, although I'd be really interested to give Linux a try on my Miggy.

So the questions now are:
- Do you know if there meanwhile is support for my HW config?
- Do you know if there is a list available somewhere, that tells me precisely what I need to download for my HW config and from where?
- Do you know if there is a good "howto" somewhere on getting Linux (Debian?) installed on my HW?

Perhaps we shouild even start a new thread about installing Linux on a PowerUp/WarpUp classic Amiga system?

[Rotzloeffel]

Great job, Adrian!
I made several attempts in the past to install Linux on my Amiga 4000 PPC with Mediator PCI board and Deneb USB 2.0....
...
Perhaps we shouild even start a new thread about installing Linux on a PowerUp/WarpUp classic Amiga system?

you are confusing me :angry:

I allready did a tutorial....

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showpost.php?p=725055&postcount=15

and by the way! Mediator is not supported by linuxAPUS! Deneb Rom must be deactivated by holding down left mousebutton during boot!

[Dandy]

you are confusing me :angry:

I allready did a tutorial....

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showpost.php?p=725055&postcount=15

Hi Rotzlöffel,

Yes, we already mailed on that topic and you possibly already pointed me to that tutorial.
If so, my health probs and some domestic issues made me forget about that.
In this case sorry.

and by the way! Mediator is not supported by linuxAPUS! Deneb Rom must be deactivated by holding down left mousebutton during boot!

Yes - that's clear to me. If already the UW-SCSI on the CSPPC isn't supported on those CDs, I would not expect the Mediator being suported, as it was released AFTER the CSPPC...

But the question here is:
Is Mediator STILL not supported - or is it supported meanwhile (like the CSPPC-UW-SCSI)?

If it is still not supported at all, trying to install Linux on my machine would serve no purpose. In this case I'm better off with my current OS 3.9/WarpOS 16.1 setup, where all of my HW works flawlessly.

I will certainly not use the AGA video output again for anything else than the early startup menue in case of an emergency - my eyes are already bad enough from using those old, flickering "ray guns" in the old days. I do not intend to worsen their state by exploring Linux on my Miggy with such a flickering screen!

And I also do not intend to buy expensive second hand Amiga graphics card just to be able to test Linux.

The same goes for the NIC and the soundcard.

[Rotzloeffel]

Hi Rotzlöffel,

Yes, we already mailed on that topic and you possibly already pointed me to that tutorial.
If so, my health probs and some domestic issues made me forget about that.
In this case sorry.

no problem my friend !

Yes - that's clear to me. If already the UW-SCSI on the CSPPC isn't supported on those CDs, I would not expect the Mediator being suported, as it was released AFTER the CSPPC...

But the question here is:
Is Mediator STILL not supported - or is it supported meanwhile (like the CSPPC-UW-SCSI)?

If it is still not supported at all, trying to install Linux on my machine would serve no purpose. In this case I'm better off with my current OS 3.9/WarpOS 16.1 setup, where all of my HW works flawlessly.

I will certainly not use the AGA video output again for anything else than the early startup menue in case of an emergency - my eyes are already bad enough from using those old, flickering "ray guns" in the old days. I do not intend to worsen their state by exploring Linux on my Miggy with such a flickering screen!

And I also do not intend to buy expensive second hand Amiga graphics card just to be able to test Linux.

The same goes for the NIC and the soundcard.

Mediator is still *NOT* supported! UWSCSI works fine as described in the tutorial I installed with it :-)

for booting you MUST deactivate the DENEB Rom either per Jumper or by holding the left Mousebutton during boot....

If you need any help, let me know.... you need a zorro-Networkcard for installation !

[Dandy]

...
Mediator is still *NOT* supported!

This means that I have no display, as long as I refuse to use the AGA video output (or an old, expensive, second hand Amiga grapics card)?
So trying to install Linux on my Miggy would serve no purpose...

UWSCSI works fine as described in the tutorial I installed with it :-)

Yeah - nice - but as long as I cannot see anything this alone is useless for me.

for booting you MUST deactivate the DENEB Rom either per Jumper or by holding the left Mousebutton during boot....

Does that mean Deneb USB is supported meanwhile?

If you need any help, let me know.... you need a zorro-Networkcard for installation !

Thanks a lot for the offer - but currently the effort would be too big. I would have to get and fit a suited graphics card, a suited NIC and soundcard first.

Without display, network and sound it does not seem to make sense to try to test Linux on my Amiga...

[ninevoltz]

It appears that the OP's links are dead, look here instead. I've been trying to boot Linux for a couple of days now with no success. I have an A3000D with Cyberstorm MkII 68060-50, 128MB RAM on the Cyberstorm board, 16MB fast RAM, and 2MB chip RAM. I also have a 256MB ZorRAM board. I boot from a compact flash card in a SCSI card reader. Every time I boot Linux, I get a black screen and the serial port spits out ABCDGHIJK. I've tried amiboot 5.6 and 6.0, and kernel 2.4 and 3.2. I was able to boot Linux before I installed the Cyberstorm, on the A3000's 68030-25. It was hit or miss then too.

I see that the ABCDGHIJK output is generated in the kernel's head.S file. It appears to be getting as far as the call to start_kernel, then it freezes. Does anyone know what might cause this?

Code: [Select]

ABCDGHIJK
[    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
[    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
[    0.000000] Linux version 3.2.0-4-amiga (debian-kernel@lists.debian.org) (gcc version 4.6.3 (Debian 4.6.3-14+m68k.2) ) #1 Debian 3.2.35-2
[    0.000000] Enabling workaround for errata I14
[    0.000000] console [debug0] enabled
[    0.000000] Amiga hardware found: [A3000] VIDEO BLITTER AMBER_FF AUDIO FLOPPY A3000_SCSI KEYBOARD MOUSE SERIAL PARALLEL A3000_CLK CHIP_RAM PAULA DENISE_HR AGNUS_HR_NTSC MAGIC_REKICK ZORRO3
[    0.000000] On node 0 totalpages: 16384
[    0.000000] free_area_init_node: node 0, pgdat 00377d3c, node_mem_map 003f3000
[    0.000000]   DMA zone: 144 pages used for memmap
[    0.000000]   DMA zone: 0 pages reserved
[    0.000000]   DMA zone: 16240 pages, LIFO batch:3
[    0.000000] initrd: 03d379a7 - 04000000
[    0.000000] pcpu-alloc: s0 r0 d32768 u32768 alloc=1*32768
[    0.000000] pcpu-alloc: [0] 0
[    0.000000] Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on.  Total pages: 16240
[    0.000000] Kernel command line: root=/dev/ram fb=false video=retz3:640x480 console=ttyS0 -b debug=ser
[    0.000000] PID hash table entries: 256 (order: -2, 1024 bytes)
[    0.000000] Dentry cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
[    0.000000] Inode-cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
[    0.000000] Memory: 57976k/57976k available (2740k kernel code, 4696k data, 124k init)
[    0.000000] NR_IRQS:32


[TeamBlackFox]

Dandy you should really look at NetBSD for the Amiga as that has significantly better support including most mediator PCI boards. NetBSD is a traditional UNIX quite unlike GNU/Linux but you may like that flair, I certainly do.

For Adrian as it seems there are some hardware hurdles to get over you may want to check out the NetBSD code and see if the driver code could be ported. BSD licencing is GPL compatible so there shouldn't be any issue.

[Rotzloeffel]

Dandy you should really look at NetBSD for the Amiga as that has significantly better support including most mediator PCI boards. NetBSD is a traditional UNIX quite unlike GNU/Linux but you may like that flair, I certainly do.

For Adrian as it seems there are some hardware hurdles to get over you may want to check out the NetBSD code and see if the driver code could be ported. BSD licencing is GPL compatible so there shouldn't be any issue.

You are right! NetBSD is supporting the Mediator Board! But not the X-Server right now! If you want to use Voodoo3 on a Mediator you have to use a actual HEAD-Kernel and compiling it by yourself, because the Console on PCI is deactivated.

Code: [Select]

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=2][FONT=Arial][SIZE=3][FONT=Verdana][SIZE=2]# PCI bus support  
#options    P5PB_CONSOLE    # console on CVPPC/BVPPC/Voodoo3
pci*        at p5pb0[/SIZE][/FONT]
[/SIZE][/FONT][/SIZE][/FONT]

STRIM is working on these Drivers. He can help!

[esc]

Is anyone able to install a basic debian setup into an hdf? I currently don't have a real amiga to test on (nor do I have any spare hard drives - living in a unique situation at the moment). I'd love to see how some of my software works on 68k linux

[Dandy]

You are right! NetBSD is supporting the Mediator Board!
...

Hmmm - but as I just discovered on the Elbox pages, it seems there's also Linux support for the Mediator and Voodoo:
http://www.elbox.com/downloads_mediator.html (scroll down to "3rd party Mediator software")

"Linux drivers for Mediator - Voodoo 3 support for Mediator 4000 by Adam Kowalczyk exp 03 Sep 2002 note, download"

"Subject: Test Linux Kernel with Voodoo 3 support for Mediator 4000
 
Hi,
 
Attached is an m68k Linux kernel with Voodoo 3 support for the Mediator
4000.  I've also included amiboot-5.6 and the batch file used to boot
the kernel.  If you have a working install of Linux, replace
rootdev/sda5 with your root dir.  Note that you don't need a working
install to boot the kernel.  It will just complain about not finding
init or root.  BTW, ne2k-pci ethernet driver is also compiled in this
kernel, but I've not had any luck with it yet.  
 
This kernel is hardcoded for the 512Mb config setting of the Mediator
4000.

Adam Kowalczyk
 
ACK Software Controls Inc."

Does anyone here have more details on this?
What do you think of this?

[Rotzloeffel]

Hmmm - but as I just discovered on the Elbox pages, it seems there's also Linux support for the Mediator and Voodoo:
http://www.elbox.com/downloads_mediator.html (scroll down to "3rd party Mediator software")
Does anyone here have more details on this?
What do you think of this?

I have a Kernel-version here for the prometheus-PCI, and it works...(maybe the same?) BUT the Kernel is very old, the Kernel-source is not available and it is 68k only! no PPC support...

[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