"Raz Ben Jehuda" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Hello !
>
> My company Exanet is very intersted with using the linuxbios.
My apologies for taking a while to reply I was trying to see if I had
an easy answer. At the moment I don't :(
The situation is that the alpha is not my current priority :(
So while all of the hard stuff works the little bit of code to make
everything work easily and smoothly has not been completed.
Looking at what you have done it is a good start. It is only my
shoddy stopping at the wrong moment with this code that is probably
holding you back. Priorities are annoying.
> In the mail archive It was said ( by you ) that
> you managed to boot linux from a floppy .
I have but please note that the alpha is a different animal and I don't
think I have quite working yet.
> I am trying to to so as well.
> I am doing it on a Microway , alpha dp264 .
How does this compare to the compaq ds10?
> I set the machine to FSB mode, copy linuxbios.rom
> ( which I created using the python ... ) .
> and renamed it to DP264SRM.ROM .
> I took vmlinuz.gz ( the 2.4.0.dp264.eb1.4 ) ,
> But I get bad image notification ( from elfboot.c the call
> "elf_check_arch(ehdr)" fails ) .
I'd have to have some more details. This is linuxbios code that is
failing? You really want my patches against 2.4.2 and the an
uncompressed kernel (built correctly) should boot. I don't know
of any problems with the 2.4.0 stuff but is has been a long time since
I tested it.
> Q. What files should the floppy contain ?
I have only played with floppy on alpha as a means of fail safe
booting. I didn't need to use it myself....
> If and when I will manages to boot from floppy,
> I downloaded the mtd util , and I created /dev/mtd0
> and the erase util with it. But I got io error .when
> I truied to burn the flash with "burn_bios".
If you have a kernel with the appropriate mtd driver it should work.
This may be a difference between you dp264 and my ds10. It would
suprise me if these machines were different but suprises happen.
> Q. How one burns the flash ?
There are two sites where my code is at:
ftp://download.linuxnetworx.com/pub/src (primary)
ftp://ftp.linuxnetworx.com/pub/linuxBIOS/snapshots
(Not everything has been moved from here yet).
I have a set of kernel patches against 2.4.2 that
contain a hacked up mtd driver for the flash, it works for the ds10
I'm not certain about all of the other variants. I would expect it to
but things change.
> There is also that mkelfimage that doesn't work .
Right. I have an file elf.pl That will make self extracting kernels
on alpa but mkelfImage hasn't been ported yet. It was simple enough
to hack the kernel so I didn't need to.
> Is there a documenation for all of this process ?
Unfortunantely not at this time. I was hoping I could talk Ron
into it after he followed what I did, but oh well.
> I will be most greatfull If you help with it .
I'll do what I can. Before I can really touch the code again it looks
like it will be at least the middle of July so all I can do is answer
questions. I'm happy to do that however.
Eric
