IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux

IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux

[Shane W.]

Hi,

  I am trying to install HardHat linux on an "Indy r5000", the SCSI disk
was blank and I was running into problems so I did a mkfs on it.  Now
the install script keeps asking me to initalize the drive.  I do not
have access to an Irix machine to repartation it or anything of the
such.  Any ideas?

-s

Re: IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux

[Roald Lygre]

On Jun 29,  3:19pm, Shane W. wrote:
> Subject: IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux
> Hi,
>
>   I am trying to install HardHat linux on an "Indy r5000", the SCSI disk
> was blank and I was running into problems so I did a mkfs on it.  Now
> the install script keeps asking me to initalize the drive.  I do not
> have access to an Irix machine to repartation it or anything of the
> such.  Any ideas?
>

If you have an IRIX operating system CD available (must be marked with
"Contains installation tools"), you could boot the disk maint tool "fx" from
the CD.

Contact me directly if you have the CD (and CDROM player) and need specific
instructions on how to repartition.

-Roald



--

---------------------------------------------------------------
| Company: SGI Norge A/S                                      |
| Email:   roald@sgi.com          Tlf:          +47 5184 3633 |
| Addr:    St Olavsgt 9           Mobil:        +47 909 33 903|
|          N-4004 Stavanger       VMail (SGI):  870-4679      |
|          NORWAY                 VMail(ext):   67114679      |
|                                                             |
| SGI Norway's WWW Home Page: http://www.sgi.no               |
---------------------------------------------------------------

Re: IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux

[Shane W.]

I do have an IRIX CD-ROM, but I do not have a SCSI CD-ROM drive.  Am I out of
luck as far as installing SGI Linux goes?

-s


Roald Lygre wrote:

> On Jun 29,  3:19pm, Shane W. wrote:
> > Subject: IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux
> > Hi,
> >
> >   I am trying to install HardHat linux on an "Indy r5000", the SCSI disk
> > was blank and I was running into problems so I did a mkfs on it.  Now
> > the install script keeps asking me to initalize the drive.  I do not
> > have access to an Irix machine to repartation it or anything of the
> > such.  Any ideas?
> >
>
> If you have an IRIX operating system CD available (must be marked with
> "Contains installation tools"), you could boot the disk maint tool "fx" from
> the CD.
>
> Contact me directly if you have the CD (and CDROM player) and need specific
> instructions on how to repartition.
>
> -Roald
>
> --
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> | Company: SGI Norge A/S                                      |
> | Email:   roald@sgi.com          Tlf:          +47 5184 3633 |
> | Addr:    St Olavsgt 9           Mobil:        +47 909 33 903|
> |          N-4004 Stavanger       VMail (SGI):  870-4679      |
> |          NORWAY                 VMail(ext):   67114679      |
> |                                                             |
> | SGI Norway's WWW Home Page: http://www.sgi.no               |
> ---------------------------------------------------------------

Re: IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux

[Tor Arntsen]

On Jun 30, 14:22, "Shane W." wrote:
>I do have an IRIX CD-ROM, but I do not have a SCSI CD-ROM drive.  Am I out of
>luck as far as installing SGI Linux goes?

The Indy can access a CD-ROM drive on another host (it's via tftp when
from the PROM I believe).

-Tor

Re: IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux

[Tor Arntsen]

On Jun 30, 14:33, "Roald Lygre" wrote:
>But you still need to be able to read the IRIX OS CD (it is in efs format). So
>you need the kernel that supports efs, as Dag pointed out.

I thought that was obvious :-)

-Tor

Re: IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux

[Tom Woelfel]

Dag Bakke writes:
 > No, you're not. Install linux 2.2.7 (.9?) on any i386 and enable experimental
 > options and EFS.
 > 
 > Then you should be able to mount the CD on the linux-i386 box and set up tftp,
 > bootp and nfs for remote booting/installing. (You don't need nfs for booting
 > fx, though.)
 > Something for a rainy day....

Hmm, is there a FAQ on how to set up such an environment ? 

I've alreayd tried to boot/install from a remote mounted cdrom. This
always results in an error. Then I've tried to copy the Irix-CD to a
directory and install from this directory. I was able to invoke fx on
the Indy, but I was not able to proceed with the installation.

(During Linux/SGI install I made propably an error which results in a
corrupted Indy-filesystem - so I'm forced to reinstall Irix on my
Indy.)

//Tom


  

Re: IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux

[Vince Weaver]

On Wed, 30 Jun 1999, Tom Woelfel wrote:

> Dag Bakke writes:
>  > No, you're not. Install linux 2.2.7 (.9?) on any i386 and enable experimental
>  > options and EFS.
>  > 
>  > Then you should be able to mount the CD on the linux-i386 box and set up tftp,
>  > bootp and nfs for remote booting/installing. (You don't need nfs for booting
>  > fx, though.)
>  > Something for a rainy day....
> 
> Hmm, is there a FAQ on how to set up such an environment ? 

my friend and I managed to upgrade Irix6.2 to Irix6.5 on a Indigo2 with no
CD-ROM this way.

It involved a Linux box with an early 2.3.x kernel on it [2.3.2 I think]
with efs support compiled it.

It took many hours of tweaking the booptab file and tftp, but finally we
got the SASH off the Irix CD to load, and eventually a miniroot.  

The one thing that really helped was putting the Debug Messages in bootp
up as high as possible, so you can see what files the SGI is requesting,
and then mess around with your bootp server until it gets the file it is
looking for.

I would be a bit more explicit but the final breakthrough was made late at
night after many, many, many randomly guessed attempts, and we were so
happy to get it working we were afraid to try and replicate it because we
never thought we'd figure it out again.

Vince

____________
\  /\  /\  /  Vince Weaver          
 \/__\/__\/   weave@eng.umd.edu     http://www.glue.umd.edu/~weave

Re: IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux

[Tom Woelfel]

Dag Bakke writes:
 > As I understand it, you only need to partition the disk with the SGI tools
 > (fx).
 > (If this is wrong, please feel free to correct me.)
 > Thus, you only need bootp and tftp to boot fx.

Yep. 

 > To boot fx on the Indy from the prom monitor (command monitor) enter:
 > setenv -p netaddr 123.456.789.123
 > boot -f bootp()remotemachine:/path/to/stand/fx.ARCS

After endeavouring with the bootp/tftp options for a couple of hours I
finally managed to get sash or fx loaded. But I've seen lot of
rejected requests during this session from the i386 server. But what's
the next step ? Do I have to change the bootfile-entry in bootptab to
point to the next requested file ? (Ooops, I'm at work - so I don't
have access to my Indy, but after partitioning the disk the Indy
requested something like sash(NN).)

I will try it once again and write down my experiences.

//Tom

Re: IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux

[Dag Bakke]

No, you're not. Install linux 2.2.7 (.9?) on any i386 and enable experimental
options and EFS.

Then you should be able to mount the CD on the linux-i386 box and set up tftp,
bootp and nfs for remote booting/installing. (You don't need nfs for booting
fx, though.)
Something for a rainy day....


Dag B


On Jun 30,  9:20, Shane W. wrote:
> Subject: Re: IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux
> I do have an IRIX CD-ROM, but I do not have a SCSI CD-ROM drive.  Am I out of
> luck as far as installing SGI Linux goes?
>
> -s
>
>
> Roald Lygre wrote:
>
> > On Jun 29,  3:19pm, Shane W. wrote:
> > > Subject: IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > >   I am trying to install HardHat linux on an "Indy r5000", the SCSI disk
> > > was blank and I was running into problems so I did a mkfs on it.  Now
> > > the install script keeps asking me to initalize the drive.  I do not
> > > have access to an Irix machine to repartation it or anything of the
> > > such.  Any ideas?
> > >
> >
> > If you have an IRIX operating system CD available (must be marked with
> > "Contains installation tools"), you could boot the disk maint tool "fx"
from
> > the CD.
> >
> > Contact me directly if you have the CD (and CDROM player) and need specific
> > instructions on how to repartition.
> >
> > -Roald
> >
> > --
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------
> > | Company: SGI Norge A/S                                      |
> > | Email:   roald@sgi.com          Tlf:          +47 5184 3633 |
> > | Addr:    St Olavsgt 9           Mobil:        +47 909 33 903|
> > |          N-4004 Stavanger       VMail (SGI):  870-4679      |
> > |          NORWAY                 VMail(ext):   67114679      |
> > |                                                             |
> > | SGI Norway's WWW Home Page: http://www.sgi.no               |
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------
>-- End of excerpt from Shane W.



-- 
Dag Bakke   -   System Support Engineer, SGI Norway
-------------------------------------------------------------------
        SGI Norge			tel:	67 11 46 01
        Strandveien 20			fax:	67 11 47 00
        1325 Lysaker			email:	dagb@oslo.sgi.com

Re: IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux

[Roald Lygre]

On Jun 30,  3:24pm, Tor Arntsen wrote:
> Subject: Re: IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux
> On Jun 30, 14:22, "Shane W." wrote:
> >I do have an IRIX CD-ROM, but I do not have a SCSI CD-ROM drive.  Am I out
of
> >luck as far as installing SGI Linux goes?
>
> The Indy can access a CD-ROM drive on another host (it's via tftp when
> from the PROM I believe).
>


But you still need to be able to read the IRIX OS CD (it is in efs format). So
you need the kernel that supports efs, as Dag pointed out.

-Roald



-- 
    
---------------------------------------------------------------
| Company: SGI Norge A/S                                      |
| Email:   roald@sgi.com          Tlf:          +47 5184 3633 |
| Addr:    St Olavsgt 9           Mobil:        +47 909 33 903|
|          N-4004 Stavanger       VMail (SGI):  870-4679      |
|          NORWAY                 VMail(ext):   67114679      |
|                                                             |
| SGI Norway's WWW Home Page: http://www.sgi.no               |
---------------------------------------------------------------

Re: IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux

[Roald Lygre]

On Jun 30,  3:24pm, Tor Arntsen wrote:
> Subject: Re: IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux
> On Jun 30, 14:22, "Shane W." wrote:
> >I do have an IRIX CD-ROM, but I do not have a SCSI CD-ROM drive.  Am I out
of
> >luck as far as installing SGI Linux goes?
>
> The Indy can access a CD-ROM drive on another host (it's via tftp when
> from the PROM I believe).
>


But you still need to be able to read the IRIX OS CD (it is in efs format). So
you need the kernel that supports efs, as Dag pointed out.

-Roald



-- 
    
---------------------------------------------------------------
| Company: SGI Norge A/S                                      |
| Email:   roald@sgi.com          Tlf:          +47 5184 3633 |
| Addr:    St Olavsgt 9           Mobil:        +47 909 33 903|
|          N-4004 Stavanger       VMail (SGI):  870-4679      |
|          NORWAY                 VMail(ext):   67114679      |
|                                                             |
| SGI Norway's WWW Home Page: http://www.sgi.no               |
---------------------------------------------------------------

Re: IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux

[Dag Bakke]

As I understand it, you only need to partition the disk with the SGI tools
(fx).
(If this is wrong, please feel free to correct me.)
Thus, you only need bootp and tftp to boot fx.


I am sure there is a linux tftp and bootp howto somewehere. If not, please read
the man-pages and write the HOWTO afterwards.


To boot fx on the Indy from the prom monitor (command monitor) enter:
setenv -p netaddr 123.456.789.123
boot -f bootp()remotemachine:/path/to/stand/fx.ARCS

And please note that 'remotemachine' should be by name, not IPaddress. Please
avoid routers between client and server. (It is doable, but often requires more
work.) If the server uses a 'non-standard' (very narrow) netmask, you may have
to tweak the bootp-line somewhat. I don't remember the exact syntax. Let us
know if this becomes a problem.


Dag B


On Jun 30, 10:06, Vince Weaver wrote:
> Subject: Re: IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux
> On Wed, 30 Jun 1999, Tom Woelfel wrote:
>
> > Dag Bakke writes:
> >  > No, you're not. Install linux 2.2.7 (.9?) on any i386 and enable
experimental
> >  > options and EFS.
> >  >
> >  > Then you should be able to mount the CD on the linux-i386 box and set up
tftp,
> >  > bootp and nfs for remote booting/installing. (You don't need nfs for
booting
> >  > fx, though.)
> >  > Something for a rainy day....
> >
> > Hmm, is there a FAQ on how to set up such an environment ?
>
> my friend and I managed to upgrade Irix6.2 to Irix6.5 on a Indigo2 with no
> CD-ROM this way.
>
> It involved a Linux box with an early 2.3.x kernel on it [2.3.2 I think]
> with efs support compiled it.
>
> It took many hours of tweaking the booptab file and tftp, but finally we
> got the SASH off the Irix CD to load, and eventually a miniroot.
>
> The one thing that really helped was putting the Debug Messages in bootp
> up as high as possible, so you can see what files the SGI is requesting,
> and then mess around with your bootp server until it gets the file it is
> looking for.
>
> I would be a bit more explicit but the final breakthrough was made late at
> night after many, many, many randomly guessed attempts, and we were so
> happy to get it working we were afraid to try and replicate it because we
> never thought we'd figure it out again.
>
> Vince
>
> ____________
> \  /\  /\  /  Vince Weaver
>  \/__\/__\/   weave@eng.umd.edu     http://www.glue.umd.edu/~weave
>-- End of excerpt from Vince Weaver



-- 
Dag Bakke   -   System Support Engineer, SGI Norway
-------------------------------------------------------------------
        SGI Norge			tel:	67 11 46 01
        Strandveien 20			fax:	67 11 47 00
        1325 Lysaker			email:	dagb@oslo.sgi.com

Re: Re: IRIX Partations with HardHat Linux

[Ulf Carlsson]

On Wed, Jun 30, 1999 at 03:25:00PM +0000, Dag Bakke wrote:
> No, you're not. Install linux 2.2.7 (.9?) on any i386 and enable experimental
> options and EFS.
> 
> Then you should be able to mount the CD on the linux-i386 box and set up tftp,
> bootp and nfs for remote booting/installing. (You don't need nfs for booting
> fx, though.)
> Something for a rainy day....

This would probably be much easier if you used the initrd stuff Thomas B.
recently wrote.  This is not tested, but I think it may work.  If it works you
may setup the initrd partition so that you have the tools you need to partition
the SCSI harddrive with a decent EFS disklabel (this partition is afterwards
appended on the end of the kernel).  I think Thomas has been working on a new
redhat installer using the initrd, but I doubt he finished it.

What's the current status?

Ulf