Mailing List Archive

J. Scott Kasten wrote:
>
> Hi guys,
>
> http://dev.gentoo.org/~kumba/mips/livecd/x-rc6/
>
> I found an RC6 candidate here, but the file permissions are such that it
> cannot be downloaded. I was very interested to try it out across
> several SGI platforms.
>
> I'm trying to get a feel for where support for SGI hardware stands. Am
> interested to see first hand what works, what doesn't, and what bugs
> still need to be squashed. Especially what hasn't been tried yet. :)
>
> Thanks,
> -S-

Actually, I locked it on my dev site after putting it on the mirrors. Check
your local mirror for it in experimental/mips/livecd/x-rc6/. I just checked
OSU's copy, and it lets you fetch the image. Be sure to read the README :)


--Kumba

--
Gentoo/MIPS Team Lead

"Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands
do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere." --Elrond
--
gentoo-mips@gentoo.org mailing list

I recently downloaded and attempted to boot an Octane with this disk. It
died mounting the root partition:

mount: Mounting /newroot/dev/loop0 on /newroot/mnt/livecd failed: Invalid
argument

Not sure what happened. I assume I burnt the disk correctly else it wouldn't
have made it that far. Any suggestions?

MikeM

On 1/22/07, Kumba <kumba@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> J. Scott Kasten wrote:
> >
> > Hi guys,
> >
> > http://dev.gentoo.org/~kumba/mips/livecd/x-rc6/
> >
> > I found an RC6 candidate here, but the file permissions are such that it
> > cannot be downloaded. I was very interested to try it out across
> > several SGI platforms.
> >
> > I'm trying to get a feel for where support for SGI hardware stands. Am
> > interested to see first hand what works, what doesn't, and what bugs
> > still need to be squashed. Especially what hasn't been tried yet. :)
> >
> > Thanks,
> > -S-
>
> Actually, I locked it on my dev site after putting it on the
> mirrors. Check
> your local mirror for it in experimental/mips/livecd/x-rc6/. I just
> checked
> OSU's copy, and it lets you fetch the image. Be sure to read the README
> :)
>
>
> --Kumba
>
> --
> Gentoo/MIPS Team Lead
>
> "Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small
> hands
> do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are
> elsewhere." --Elrond
> --
> gentoo-mips@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>

Mike Martin wrote:
> I recently downloaded and attempted to boot an Octane with this disk. It
> died mounting the root partition:
>
> mount: Mounting /newroot/dev/loop0 on /newroot/mnt/livecd failed:
> Invalid argument
>
> Not sure what happened. I assume I burnt the disk correctly else it
> wouldn't have made it that far. Any suggestions?
>
> MikeM


It's really hard to say. I tested it on all of my systems before uploading, and
with the Octane, this means an external drive (funny enough, an O2 CD drive
jammed into a Sun 411 case). And that booted fine on both my Octane and Indy.

"Invalid Argument" from mount could mean a wide array of things (yay for Unix's
legacy of non-descriptive, ambiguous errors). The process that occurs on an SGI
bootcd for us is a rather complex one:

1. arcload boots from the DVh partition of the CD
(yes, these CDs have partitions)
2. arcload finds and boots a kernel
3. kernel loads, and executes /init in an embedded initramfs file linked
into the kernel
4. /init does some prep work, and launches `getdvhoff` to scan the CD
for the offset of the next partition (where / lives), and passes a
number representing this offset back to `losetup`.
5. losetup uses this number to "point" /dev/loop0 at this offset, which
effectively makes /dev/loop0 a block device with data on it.
6. mount tries to mount /dev/loop0 and pivot_root into the real Gentoo
filesystem.


Quite likely, step #5 might've failed somewheres along the line. The offset has
to be exact to the bit, so maybe something got whacked in the burn and the
detected offset is invalid. Hard to say without more information. Thus, when
it got to step #6, boom.

I'd try re-burning the disk at a slower speed, use only CD-R's of decent quality
(TDK, Memorex, Sony, Ricoh/Ritek, etc,.. brands), and use cdrecord (or whatever
license-unencumbered version is out there. stupid license wars). A few people
reported getting it to work with a windows burn tool, but we have little data on
that, thus why cdrecord is the suggested tool.

Mostly, you were able to read the kernel into memory, which is ~8MB. It's
possible the disc you burned was good enough to get those 8MB off to boot the
kernel, but when it went looking for the meat, it got denied and pwned.



--Kumba

--
Gentoo/MIPS Team Lead

"Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands
do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere." --Elrond
--
gentoo-mips@gentoo.org mailing list

Thanks for your help. I will try another burn. I'm using cdrecord and am
using (I believe) good media. What command parameters for cdrecord would you
recommend?

For fun I tried booting with a different external CD-ROM drive ... with
identical results.

I will also try the disk out on a R4600 Indy.

Thanks for your hard work.
MikeMartin

On 1/22/07, Kumba <kumba@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> Mike Martin wrote:
> > I recently downloaded and attempted to boot an Octane with this disk. It
> > died mounting the root partition:
> >
> > mount: Mounting /newroot/dev/loop0 on /newroot/mnt/livecd failed:
> > Invalid argument
> >
> > Not sure what happened. I assume I burnt the disk correctly else it
> > wouldn't have made it that far. Any suggestions?
> >
> > MikeM
>
>
> It's really hard to say. I tested it on all of my systems before
> uploading, and
> with the Octane, this means an external drive (funny enough, an O2 CD
> drive
> jammed into a Sun 411 case). And that booted fine on both my Octane and
> Indy.
>
> "Invalid Argument" from mount could mean a wide array of things (yay for
> Unix's
> legacy of non-descriptive, ambiguous errors). The process that occurs on
> an SGI
> bootcd for us is a rather complex one:
>
> 1. arcload boots from the DVh partition of the CD
> (yes, these CDs have partitions)
> 2. arcload finds and boots a kernel
> 3. kernel loads, and executes /init in an embedded initramfs file linked
> into the kernel
> 4. /init does some prep work, and launches `getdvhoff` to scan the CD
> for the offset of the next partition (where / lives), and passes a
> number representing this offset back to `losetup`.
> 5. losetup uses this number to "point" /dev/loop0 at this offset, which
> effectively makes /dev/loop0 a block device with data on it.
> 6. mount tries to mount /dev/loop0 and pivot_root into the real Gentoo
> filesystem.
>
>
> Quite likely, step #5 might've failed somewheres along the line. The
> offset has
> to be exact to the bit, so maybe something got whacked in the burn and the
> detected offset is invalid. Hard to say without more information. Thus,
> when
> it got to step #6, boom.
>
> I'd try re-burning the disk at a slower speed, use only CD-R's of decent
> quality
> (TDK, Memorex, Sony, Ricoh/Ritek, etc,.. brands), and use cdrecord (or
> whatever
> license-unencumbered version is out there. stupid license wars). A few
> people
> reported getting it to work with a windows burn tool, but we have little
> data on
> that, thus why cdrecord is the suggested tool.
>
> Mostly, you were able to read the kernel into memory, which is ~8MB. It's
> possible the disc you burned was good enough to get those 8MB off to boot
> the
> kernel, but when it went looking for the meat, it got denied and pwned.
>
>
>
> --Kumba
>
> --
> Gentoo/MIPS Team Lead
>
> "Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small
> hands
> do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are
> elsewhere." --Elrond
> --
> gentoo-mips@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>

Mike Martin wrote:
> Thanks for your help. I will try another burn. I'm using cdrecord and am
> using (I believe) good media. What command parameters for cdrecord would
> you recommend?
>
> For fun I tried booting with a different external CD-ROM drive ... with
> identical results.
>
> I will also try the disk out on a R4600 Indy.

for cdrecord:
cdrecord -vv -pad speed=16 dev=ATAPI:0,0,0 -tao <iso file>

Check the md5sum/sha1sum against what's listed on the mirrors too.

An R4600 Indy might be risky. R4600 CPUs are some of the most error prone
things. So many hacks/workarounds in the kernel for them. YMMV.



--Kumba

--
Gentoo/MIPS Team Lead

"Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands
do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere." --Elrond
--
gentoo-mips@gentoo.org mailing list

A belated thanks! Sorry for slow reply, but I've been installing. :)

I ended up using RC5 to bootstrap an IP32-R5K to partition the disk and
add the netboot image and arcload to the volume header. From there, I was
able to run the normal install. Thanks to the obvious hard work of lots
of gentoo people, it went smooth.

I have already emerged my way up to loadable kernel modules, IPv6,
XORG-X11, and am typing this mail on the system now. It seems to be rock
solid. After I've thorougly checked my kernel out over a couple weeks,
I'll post the config to Stuart's hardware compatibility page.

A few questions though.

[1] From looking at other configs there, and having just walked through
the 2.17.10 config process, it looks like the alsa mips ip32 sound device
has been disabled. I cannot even select it in 2.17.10. I was wondering
what the status of this driver was. Judging from submitted configs, it
looks like people had been enabling it at 2.16 or earlier.

[2] What is the root password for the RC6 CD? :)

I noticed in the RC6 comments that no-one had tested on the Indigo2, IP22
arch. I have a headless I2 (formerly extreeme) and will test boot it
sometime this comming weekend.

[3] Has anyone tried Firewire in the O2 PCI slot? I have an ADS
Technologies combo Firewire/USB 2.0 PCI card comming soon. This uses an
ALI chipset. I pulled the USB config from the RC6 CD kernel. I suspect
it won't be much to make the USB portion work. It will be interesting to
see about the firewire. Fortunately Firewire chipsets are more
standardized than USB. I'll report back when I know something here.

Thanks,
-S-

On Mon, 22 Jan 2007, Kumba wrote:

> Actually, I locked it on my dev site after putting it on the mirrors. Check
> your local mirror for it in experimental/mips/livecd/x-rc6/. I just checked
> OSU's copy, and it lets you fetch the image. Be sure to read the README :)
>
>
> --Kumba
>
--
gentoo-mips@gentoo.org mailing list

J. Scott Kasten wrote:
> [2] What is the root password for the RC6 CD? :)

Try 'sudo su -' or 'sudo -s' (whichever you prefer).

--
Andrew Gaffney http://dev.gentoo.org/~agaffney/
Gentoo Linux Developer Installer Project
--
gentoo-mips@gentoo.org mailing list

Sorry for the delay. Here's what I've tried/found.

I did another burn at a slower speed as you suggested. Prior to this I
confirmed that the MD5Sum matched the one listed on the download site.
The burn finished without error. Booting from the burnt CD failed in
an identical manner as before. I also tried the same disk on an Indy,
which also failed in an identical manner. On an Indigo2 it also
failed, however since video wasn't working, I couldn't see the error.
I believe it would have been the same.

I also tried multiple CD-Rom drives (4 in total). This didn't have a
noticable effect.

Of interest is that the RC5 disk does boot perfectly, however since
the ethernet driver in the RC5 build was messed up, I can't do
anything usefull with it!

Can anyone help? I would really like to get these machines functional!

Thanks in advance.
Mike Martin

On 1/23/07, Kumba <kumba@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Mike Martin wrote:
> > Thanks for your help. I will try another burn. I'm using cdrecord and am
> > using (I believe) good media. What command parameters for cdrecord would
> > you recommend?
> >
> > For fun I tried booting with a different external CD-ROM drive ... with
> > identical results.
> >
> > I will also try the disk out on a R4600 Indy.
>
> for cdrecord:
> cdrecord -vv -pad speed=16 dev=ATAPI:0,0,0 -tao <iso file>
>
> Check the md5sum/sha1sum against what's listed on the mirrors too.
>
> An R4600 Indy might be risky. R4600 CPUs are some of the most error prone
> things. So many hacks/workarounds in the kernel for them. YMMV.
>
>
>
> --Kumba
>
> --
> Gentoo/MIPS Team Lead
>
> "Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands
> do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere." --Elrond
> --
> gentoo-mips@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>
--
gentoo-mips@gentoo.org mailing list

> Can anyone help? I would really like to get these machines
> functional!

Sure, use install via netboot, which has been our recommended method
from the beginning anyway.

-Steve

That's the easy answer. Unfortunately the Octane (which is the one I
want to get working) resides on a network where netboot is not
allowed. Believe me, I've tried to do this.

The Indy, happily netboots (on my home network). I tried to boot it
and the Indigo2 from CD to test whether the problem what the Octane,
that CD or the X-RC6 distribution.

From my understanding the intention of the X-RC6 cd is not to provide
the primary method of installing the OS. It is more of an experiment
to see if what can be done and provide a quick "hey look what Linux
can do" demo environment. I'm looking to use it for exactly that.

Thanks!
Mike Martin

On 2/2/07, Stephen P. Becker <geoman@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > Can anyone help? I would really like to get these machines
> > functional!
>
> Sure, use install via netboot, which has been our recommended method
> from the beginning anyway.
>
> -Steve
>
>
--
gentoo-mips@gentoo.org mailing list

Success!

I have successfully burnt and booted my SGI Octane from Kumba's X-RC6
distribution. The trick was in the burning. I was burning it from SUSE
in a DVD burner. For whatever reason, it didn't work. I then tried
burning it using cdrecord under Windows XP. I know everything says you
can't burn the disk in Windows, but it was the only other machine I
had with a burner. It worked.

For the record I used this file:
http://smithii.com/files/cdrtools-2.01-bootcd.ru-w32.zip
downloaded from this site: http://smithii.com/cdrtools
with this command: cdrecord -vv -pad speed=12 dev=1,0,0 -tao
livecd-mips3-gcc4-X-RC6.img

I've used the disk to boot my Octane and my Indy, both into X without
any other problems.

Thanks everyone for your help!
Now I just need to figure out how to install and boot from the hard drive!

MikeMartin

On 2/2/07, Mike Martin <mikemartin@linux.ca> wrote:
> That's the easy answer. Unfortunately the Octane (which is the one I
> want to get working) resides on a network where netboot is not
> allowed. Believe me, I've tried to do this.
>
> The Indy, happily netboots (on my home network). I tried to boot it
> and the Indigo2 from CD to test whether the problem what the Octane,
> that CD or the X-RC6 distribution.
>
> From my understanding the intention of the X-RC6 cd is not to provide
> the primary method of installing the OS. It is more of an experiment
> to see if what can be done and provide a quick "hey look what Linux
> can do" demo environment. I'm looking to use it for exactly that.
>
> Thanks!
> Mike Martin
>
--
gentoo-mips@gentoo.org mailing list

Mike Martin wrote:
> Success!
>
> I have successfully burnt and booted my SGI Octane from Kumba's X-RC6
> distribution. The trick was in the burning. I was burning it from SUSE
> in a DVD burner. For whatever reason, it didn't work. I then tried
> burning it using cdrecord under Windows XP. I know everything says you
> can't burn the disk in Windows, but it was the only other machine I
> had with a burner. It worked.
>
> For the record I used this file:
> http://smithii.com/files/cdrtools-2.01-bootcd.ru-w32.zip
> downloaded from this site: http://smithii.com/cdrtools
> with this command: cdrecord -vv -pad speed=12 dev=1,0,0 -tao
> livecd-mips3-gcc4-X-RC6.img
>
> I've used the disk to boot my Octane and my Indy, both into X without
> any other problems.
>
> Thanks everyone for your help!
> Now I just need to figure out how to install and boot from the hard drive!

Interesting, what DVD Burner and what burning program? I suspect a DVD drive
that has a firmware bug in its handling of burnable CDs. Probably such a subtle
thing, QA missed it at the factory, or we're the only kind of setup that
triggers it.

And we never said Windows was impossible, just no one's every really tried it
before and reported success. But you did, since win32 version of
cdr-whateveritscallednow will do the trick nicely.



--Kumba

--
Gentoo/MIPS Team Lead

"Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands
do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere." --Elrond
--
gentoo-mips@gentoo.org mailing list

J. Scott Kasten wrote:
>
> [1] From looking at other configs there, and having just walked through
> the 2.17.10 config process, it looks like the alsa mips ip32 sound
> device has been disabled. I cannot even select it in 2.17.10. I was
> wondering what the status of this driver was. Judging from submitted
> configs, it looks like people had been enabling it at 2.16 or earlier.

O2 doesn't have a working sound driver. I dunno what the alsa mips thing is,
but it's probably dead code. A few people have, apparently, created a working
sound driver, but they've never released the source, so, it's kinda like Duke
Nukem Forever.

The only known driver was designed in the old 2.5 days and 2.6.1 timeframe, but
attempts to forward port it never do too well. It can be compiled, but all it
does is make ears bleed with static. Someone with an O2, free time, decent
knowledge of sound hardware and kernel development, and a few pots of coffee
needs to step forward and help us get the thing to work.


> [2] What is the root password for the RC6 CD? :)
>
> I noticed in the RC6 comments that no-one had tested on the Indigo2,
> IP22 arch. I have a headless I2 (formerly extreeme) and will test boot
> it sometime this comming weekend.

There's isn't one available. LiveCDs run pwgen to auto-scramble the password on
bootup, so you have to use sudo to change it.

I2 IP22 testing is kinda limited, since my only R4400 motherboard just up and
died for no reason. So it's now an IP28 machine (that I haven't managed to boot
for a few months now). Plus it and Indy R4K are the only mips3-class machines
we still support, and the Indy R4K series have always been a gamble. Especially
the R4600.


> [3] Has anyone tried Firewire in the O2 PCI slot? I have an ADS
> Technologies combo Firewire/USB 2.0 PCI card comming soon. This uses an
> ALI chipset. I pulled the USB config from the RC6 CD kernel. I suspect
> it won't be much to make the USB portion work. It will be interesting
> to see about the firewire. Fortunately Firewire chipsets are more
> standardized than USB. I'll report back when I know something here.

I haven't, but given that USB2 sometimes works better than the onboard scsi (w/
flash drives), it might work. Give it a shot with some common firewire device
that hopefully isn't too complicated, and let us know what happens.



--Kumba

--
Gentoo/MIPS Team Lead

"Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands
do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere." --Elrond
--
gentoo-mips@gentoo.org mailing list

> Interesting, what DVD Burner and what burning program? I suspect a DVD drive
> that has a firmware bug in its handling of burnable CDs. Probably such a subtle
> thing, QA missed it at the factory, or we're the only kind of setup that
> triggers it.

It unsuccessfully burnt on a "GCA-4166B" in an HP AMD64 machine using
"cdrecord-clone" version 2.02 for x86-64 under SUSE Enterprise Desktop
10.

> And we never said Windows was impossible, just no one's every really tried it
> before and reported success. But you did, since win32 version of
> cdr-whateveritscallednow will do the trick nicely.

Ture enough. I added the word impossible for dramatic effect.

MikeMartin
--
gentoo-mips@gentoo.org mailing list