Just a curiosity, but I recall (as I had to do it again last week) that c:
should be the BSD disk label that encompasses the entire disk no? Please help
me out if I am mistaken because I would like to better understand BSD
disklabeling. Without that aboot would be unable to actually boot the device
no? Just curious.
TIA,
James
also any pages on BSD disklabeling that are informative and that anyone knows
off the top of their head would be great.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
James Fowler
Graduate Student Political Science & Latin America
Arizona State University
jamesvi@asu.edu ICQ: 22088266
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Mon, 3 Apr 2000, Gregory Gee wrote:
>
> Thanks for the tips. I have gotten a little farther. I recently found
> the addendum to the RedHat 6.1 install that talks about Alpha. Reading the
> SRM howto and the addendum helped me understand a little more about the aboot
> and BSD label issue. So Here is what I did.
>
> - Booted from floppy to install from CD with RedHat6.1.
> >>> boot dva0 -file vmlinux.gz -flags "root=/dev/scd0 text expert"
> RedHat mentioned that I needed to use expert mode to install but didn't
> say how to do it. I used some parts from the addendum and another part from
> the axp mail-list archives to make up this line. But the above got me going.
>
> - Created partitions using fdisk. RedHat said I would have to use the
> fdisk utility in the redhat install expert mode and use the BSD labels. So I created
> the following partitions.
> a: 4Mb boot
> b: 128Mb swap
> c: 20Mb ext2
> d: 3Gb ext2
> e: 1Gb ext2
>
> The addendum said to have a: of type boot and b: of type swap and rest as ext2.
>
> - Assign names to partition.
>
> a: 4Mb boot
> b: 128Mb swap
> c: 20Mb ext2 /boot
> d: 3Gb ext2 /
> e: 1Gb ext2 /var
>
> Should a: have a mount point? It wasn't mentioned anywhere.
>
> - Then I installed all the rest of the software.
>
> Now the trick is, how do I boot. I have tried may different ways of booting.
> >>> boot dka0 -file 3/vmlinuz -flags "root=/dev/sda4"
> >>> boot dka0 -file 3/boot/vmlinuz -flags "root=/dev/sda4"
> >>> boot dka0 -file 3/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.13-0.9 -flags "root=/dev/sda4"
> >>> boot dka0 -file 3/vmlinuz-2.2.13-0.9 -flags "root=/dev/sda4"
> >>> boot dka0
>
> All of them get me into the aboot but it complains either about unknown
> compression or can't mount partition 1. Was I supposed to to give a:
> a mount point? Or is my partioning all wrong? I'm not sure I understand
> the a: being boot type.
>
> Hope you can give me that list tip. I feel so close to success.
>
> Thanks,
> Greg.
>
> "Duff, P" wrote:
> >
> > If RH failed to run swriteboot (unlikely) it could cause the error you
> > mention.
> > Your SRM command line magic might also be wrong.
> > Assuming your / partition is the first one on the drive, your boot command
> > should look something like
> > >>> b dka0 -fi 1/boot/kernel_name_goes_here -fl root=/dev/sda1
> > BTW, you are installing on DKA0, aren't you? Otherwise, booting from
> > DKA0 won't be real productive. :(
> >
> > If that doesn't produce the desired results, you might have an onboard
> > QLogic SCSI controller. If the boot msgs include something like:
> > qlogicisp: new isp1020 revision ID (5) qlogicisp: i/o region 0x9000-0x90ff
> > already in use
> > you may need to rebuild the kernel w/ Block devices-> Generic PCI
> > DMA support turned off. Or you could copy one from:
> > ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/Linux-Alpha/Kernels/generic-up-2.2.12.gz
> >
> > I've also seen where installations failed to thrive due to residual stuff in
> > the MBR.
> > If you boot from the CD and Alt-F2 when you get to Disk Druid,
> > # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1024k count=10
> > will clean house on your drive.
> >
> > I hope this helps. If it doesn't, it's still OK because folks who are a lot
> > more knowledgeable than I will likely pitch in their $0.02.
> >
> > P Duff
> >
> > > ----------
> > > From: Gregory Gee[SMTP:gregg@playground.net]
> > > Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2000 4:02 PM
> > > To: Alpha Linux
> > > Subject: Newbie question about booting.
> > >
> > >
> > > I'm not new to linux but new to Alpha. I am trying to figure out what
> > > to
> > > do after Linux is installed. Since I am new to Alpha, I decided to use a
> > > RedHat6.1 version. I have been able to install it booting from cdrom and
> > > floppy,
> > > but after the install is done, it says that DKA0 is no a valid boot block.
> > > Is there
> > > some post installation steps I should have done?
> > >
> > > System specs:
> > > AS 400 4/166
> > > RedHat 6.1
> > > Firmware SRM
> > >
> > > When replying, remember that I have pretty much 0 knowlegde about Alpha
> > > and SRM.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Greg.
> > >
> > > --
> > > To unsubscribe: send e-mail to axp-list-request@redhat.com with
> > > 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Do not send it to axp-list@redhat.com
> > >
>
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>
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