Linux on Intel "Big Sur"

Linux on Intel "Big Sur"

[Alexei Gerasimov]

Hello!

I happen to posses an old "Big Sur" machine manufactured by Intel, based
around two Itanium (Merced) CPU's and a 460GX chipset. The machine is
labeled as an "enginnering sample" (label:
http://ishells.net/spy/itanium/DSC00873.jpg), and looks identical to the
HP i2000 workstation (picture: http://ishells.net/spy/itanium/DSC00880.jpg).

I have faced a problem of getting an operating system for it. Namely,
Linux. I have tried installing both Debian 3.0r6 Woody and Debian 4.0r1
Etch, however, the CD kernel doesn't succeed to boot. Somewhere after
probing for USB and SCSI devices, the video signal is lost (monitor
switches into a stand-by mode), and nothing else happens. Since I'm
using some old Matrox graphics card, I thought it could be a problem
with framebuffer, but disabling the framebuffer didn't help.

On the Debian website, it's stated that there could be problems due to
old BIOS/firmware versions. Here's what I've got:

BIOS: W460GXBS2.86E.0117C.P09.200108091154
SMBIOS: 2.3.1

PAL (A/B): 6623/6625
SAL (A/B): 101/101
Boot Block: 30

There are BIOS and firmware updates for i2000 available on the HP
website, but I'm not sure if they are compatible with my machine, and am
afraid of damaging either BIOS or firmware at updating attempt.

Do you reckon it is safe to update? What else would you suggest me to do
about my machine to succeed with Linux installation? And is it possible
to run HP-UX 11i (probably v1.5/1.6/2.0) on it?

Thanks in advance,
Alexei Gerasimov.

RE: Linux on Intel "Big Sur"

[Luck, Tony]

> I happen to posses an old "Big Sur" machine manufactured by Intel, based
> around two Itanium (Merced) CPU's and a 460GX chipset. The machine is
> labeled as an "enginnering sample" (label:
> http://ishells.net/spy/itanium/DSC00873.jpg), and looks identical to the
> HP i2000 workstation (picture: http://ishells.net/spy/itanium/DSC00880.jpg).

I haven't booted kernels on BigSur/Merced based systems for a very long
time (3 years? perhaps more) ... and untested code very quickly turns into
non-working code :-(

> Do you reckon it is safe to update? What else would you suggest me to do
> about my machine to succeed with Linux installation?

You'd probably be a lot happier if you re-cycled this machine and found
a newer one (at least McKinley based).  If you really want to continue
you might try to track down some install disks for a version of Linux
that is the same age as the machine (e.g. RedHat AS 2.1).  At least these
are known to work on this h/w.

-Tony

Re: Linux on Intel "Big Sur"

[Bjorn Helgaas]

On Sunday 09 December 2007 10:59:15 am Alexei Gerasimov wrote:
> I happen to posses an old "Big Sur" machine manufactured by Intel, based
> around two Itanium (Merced) CPU's and a 460GX chipset. The machine is
> labeled as an "enginnering sample" (label:
> http://ishells.net/spy/itanium/DSC00873.jpg), and looks identical to the
> HP i2000 workstation (picture: http://ishells.net/spy/itanium/DSC00880.jpg).
> 
> I have faced a problem of getting an operating system for it. Namely,
> Linux. I have tried installing both Debian 3.0r6 Woody and Debian 4.0r1
> Etch, however, the CD kernel doesn't succeed to boot. Somewhere after
> probing for USB and SCSI devices, the video signal is lost (monitor
> switches into a stand-by mode), and nothing else happens. Since I'm
> using some old Matrox graphics card, I thought it could be a problem
> with framebuffer, but disabling the framebuffer didn't help.
> 
> On the Debian website, it's stated that there could be problems due to
> old BIOS/firmware versions. Here's what I've got:
> 
> BIOS: W460GXBS2.86E.0117C.P09.200108091154
> SMBIOS: 2.3.1
> 
> PAL (A/B): 6623/6625
> SAL (A/B): 101/101
> Boot Block: 30
> 
> There are BIOS and firmware updates for i2000 available on the HP
> website, but I'm not sure if they are compatible with my machine, and am
> afraid of damaging either BIOS or firmware at updating attempt.
> 
> Do you reckon it is safe to update? What else would you suggest me to do
> about my machine to succeed with Linux installation? And is it possible
> to run HP-UX 11i (probably v1.5/1.6/2.0) on it?

I've only used the HP i2000 version, and even that's been a long time,
but my guess is that the firmware upgrade would be safe, and that the
appropriate HP-UX version would probably run on it.

If you want to debug the Linux problem, you might try using a serial
console (try something like "console=uart,io,0x3f8,9600n8" or
"console=uart,io,0x2f8,9600n8"), adding some debug options
("debug initcall_debug") and booting to single-user mode
("single" or "init=/bin/bash").

Bjorn

Re: Linux on Intel "Big Sur"

[Alexei Gerasimov]

Bjorn Helgaas wrote:
> I've only used the HP i2000 version, and even that's been a long time,
> but my guess is that the firmware upgrade would be safe, and that the
> appropriate HP-UX version would probably run on it.
>   
I've discovered a small detail about updates: the firmware update seems
to be safe, but the BIOS update (to the version 1.30) available from the
HP website is marked as for CPU's with C2 stepping. According to my
CPUID, my Itanium's are C0 stepping, therefore an update to the version
dedicated for CPU's with different stepping might be fatal. Personally,
I don't know what stepping is, thus cannot be sure to make any
conclusions. What do you think about this?

Alex.

Re: Linux on Intel "Big Sur"

[Bjorn Helgaas]

On Monday 10 December 2007 03:03:42 pm Alexei Gerasimov wrote:
> Bjorn Helgaas wrote:
> > I've only used the HP i2000 version, and even that's been a long time,
> > but my guess is that the firmware upgrade would be safe, and that the
> > appropriate HP-UX version would probably run on it.
> >   
> I've discovered a small detail about updates: the firmware update seems
> to be safe, but the BIOS update (to the version 1.30) available from the
> HP website is marked as for CPU's with C2 stepping. According to my
> CPUID, my Itanium's are C0 stepping, therefore an update to the version
> dedicated for CPU's with different stepping might be fatal. Personally,
> I don't know what stepping is, thus cannot be sure to make any
> conclusions. What do you think about this?

CPU steppings are minor changes to the processor, usually to fix
problems.  The CPU comes with a piece of firmware called PAL that
is specific to the CPU model.  The PAL is packaged up as part of
the firmware update from HP, but the PAL itself comes from Intel,
and we really don't have much visibility into it.

Normally, a new PAL would work on all previous steppings of a given
processor model, but sometimes there are exceptions, especially for
early prototype CPUs.

If this were my machine, and I really, really wanted to get it
working (it's ancient and slow by today's standards), I would leave
the firmware alone and try to debug it as a Linux problem.  If it
turns out to be a firmware issue, you could try the upgrade.  But
I'd hate to brick the box if it failed.

Bjorn

Re: Linux on Intel "Big Sur"

[Peter Chubb]

>>>>> "Alexei" = Alexei Gerasimov <alex@netbynet.ru> writes:


Alexei> I have faced a problem of getting an operating system for
Alexei> it. Namely, Linux. I have tried installing both Debian 3.0r6
Alexei> Woody and Debian 4.0r1 Etch, however, the CD kernel doesn't
Alexei> succeed to boot. Somewhere after probing for USB and SCSI
Alexei> devices, the video signal is lost (monitor switches into a
Alexei> stand-by mode), and nothing else happens. Since I'm using some
Alexei> old Matrox graphics card, I thought it could be a problem with
Alexei> framebuffer, but disabling the framebuffer didn't help.


Hmmm.  I boot i2000s at least once a month to make sure Linux still
works with the latest kernels.  But I use the BigSur defconfig, not
the generic one the distros use (note to self:  try with a generic
kernel).

I strongly suggest trying to boot using a serial console.  The video
stuff has been pretty flakey at various times.

--
Dr Peter Chubb  http://www.gelato.unsw.edu.au  peterc AT gelato.unsw.edu.au
http://www.ertos.nicta.com.au           ERTOS within National ICT Australia

Re: Linux on Intel "Big Sur"

[Robin Holt]

On Tue, Dec 11, 2007 at 05:17:06PM +1100, Peter Chubb wrote:
> >>>>> "Alexei" = Alexei Gerasimov <alex@netbynet.ru> writes:
> 
> 
> Alexei> I have faced a problem of getting an operating system for
> Alexei> it. Namely, Linux. I have tried installing both Debian 3.0r6
> Alexei> Woody and Debian 4.0r1 Etch, however, the CD kernel doesn't
> Alexei> succeed to boot. Somewhere after probing for USB and SCSI
> Alexei> devices, the video signal is lost (monitor switches into a
> Alexei> stand-by mode), and nothing else happens. Since I'm using some
> Alexei> old Matrox graphics card, I thought it could be a problem with
> Alexei> framebuffer, but disabling the framebuffer didn't help.
> 
> 
> Hmmm.  I boot i2000s at least once a month to make sure Linux still
> works with the latest kernels.  But I use the BigSur defconfig, not
> the generic one the distros use (note to self:  try with a generic
> kernel).

Yeah, I booted a bigsur with the 2.6.22 kernel bigsur config a couple
months ago.  I ran into userland issues as the OS was ancient.

Good Luck,
Robin