Re: Partial Success Report

[Jeff Coffin <jcoffin@sv.usweb.com>]

Ulf Carlsson <grim@zigzegv.ml.org> writes:

> It *should* find an initial console if you have mounted the root
> filesystem from the hardhat CD correctly. 

Maybe that's the problem, it all *looks* right.  Is this the case for
the harthat kernel as well as the 2.1.116 and 2.1.121 versions off the
FTP server?

Let's see if I have this straight:

from the PROM, it I do

boot bootp():/vmlinux

and NFS is configured properly (more or less as per the HowTo) on the
i386 box, the kernel will boot and find the NFS root filesystem as
configured in exports or do I need to pass the kernel the nfsroot
param to get it to properly mount the install root?

> It would probably not make much difference, "Warning: unable to open
> an initial console" isn't caused by a gfx board neither an old
> kernel, but from an incorrect /dev/console. 

That's what I thought.  I was speculating that the hardware trouble
was causing the kerel hangs.

> I'm currently running hardhat diskless, I'm only using the IRIX
> harddrive when I boot (the bootp command is loaded from the
> harddrive). 

Not from the PROM?  How does that work?  (I'm new to SGI's and getting
IRIX up at all from just a CD and a new hard drive was a "learning
experience") 

I'll play with it some more tonight or tomorrow when i have the time.

Thanks for the suggestions.


--jeff