Octane installation problems

cioannou · Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 6:12 pm Post subject: Octane installation problems

After successfully netbooting my Octane, I created partitions etc.

At first I downloaded the stage1-mips3 which was probably wrong because after many compiling hours it gave me a "Bus error" ,
I googled a bit and found that I should download the stage3-mips4.

After downloading the stage3-mips4 and followed the gentoo handbook instructions I could not find the .config file for the kernel , so I just gave it a try with the defaults. (Where can I find this? The site that the handbook refers to mentions some configs but has no download files.)

Anyway , I just started to compile the kernel and immediately got a pretty message stating that it could not find the "gnu-mips-gcc"

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance

Redhatter · Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 3:45 am Post subject:

I believe geoman has already answered your question on IRC... but just for the sake of the archives...

With the Octane and Octane2, you need to apply special patches to mips-sources to support the Octane. This includes things like ImpactSR, VPro, IOC3 and other bits and pieces.

This is done for you by setting ip30 in your USE flags. This will gain you the sources you need.

The other alternative is to fetch raw sources from the Linux/MIPS Git repository, then patch them using Skylark's SpeedRacer patches. Do this at your own perril though. ;-)

IP28 users, likewise, should have USE=ip28, and, if they wish to roll-their-own source, should use patches from Peter Fuerst's site. The USE=ip28 is especially important though, as it enables the cache barriers patch, required to work around a (hardware) caching issue on the Indigo2 R10000.

IP27 users, again, USE=ip27. I'm not sure where you get the patches for this platform though, these machines are somewhat complex by nature.

Note that it's not possible to use vanilla kernel.org sources on MIPS, nor is it possible to use any of the other source trees available in sys-kernel.

For the .config -- if someone has contributed one, you can look for it in the hardware compatability database and use one of the configs there, or, there's one distributed with the kernel. To use the in-kernel one, use make ip30_defconfig. To use one of the "canned" configs, download the text file, save as .config, drop it in your kernel tree and run make oldconfig. (Ohh, and if you have a config that works, do us a favour and contribute your .config and notes unless it's identical to one already present :-D

)

On 64-bit systems, such as those above, unless you're running a n32 userland (which is strongly discouraged at present), you'll need to also emerge a 64-bit capable GCC. emerge gcc-mips64 should look after this.

This is stuff I know belongs in the guide... hopefully now that some of this uni stuff is through, I should have the time to make some of the necessary updates.
_________________
Stuart Longland (a.k.a Redhatter, VK4MSL)
I haven't lost my mind - it's backed up on a tape somewhere...

Gentoo/MIPS Cobalt developer, Mozilla herd member.

cioannou · Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 7:47 am Post subject:

Thanks a lot for your help , I also needed to 'emerge binutils' for 'make' to work.

I think the USE="ip30" made the job

As you have probably noticed I am extremely noob in Gentoo and Octane so I need more time to get into it.

'make ip30_defconfig' does not work , make oldconfig worked and asked me a few questions , afterwards i went through make menuconfig and noticed that everything related to SGI was already selected , so I went for make && make modules_install

We will find out today what happened.

Galahad · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 126

May I ask what the status of VPro is and what will be supported in an upcoming driver? Just console or X, too? And if, will X be accelerated or shadowfb like Impact.
I guess all that would be needed would be an accelerated X over opengl driver.
When it has progressed that far, I'll happily betatest everything I can get my hands on. I even bought a second HD for my octane in anticipation

.

cioannou · Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 7:23 am Post subject:

At the moment I cannot even build the kernel.

I started the whole procedure from scratch and now it says that it cannot build an 64bit kernel with abi 32.

:evil:

It will not get away , I will make it.

Redhatter · Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:33 pm Post subject:

cioannou · Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 2:07 pm Post subject:

Redhatter · Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 12:05 am Post subject:

Well, the lack of an Octane here has a lot to do with the docs being somewhat lacking in Octane support. They need a full update again, as they were rewritten prior to Octane becomming stable.

http://dev.gentoo.org/~kumba/mips/misc/ip30.conf <-- There's a kernel config for Octane on Linux 2.6.10 -- you could try that.
http://dev.gentoo.org/~kumba/mips/netboot/configs/ <-- or there's these, one was used to generate the netboot you're probably using.

If you have any updates for the documentation, then please, do tell... I somewhat rely on feedback to get things fixed. :-)

_________________
Stuart Longland (a.k.a Redhatter, VK4MSL)
I haven't lost my mind - it's backed up on a tape somewhere...

Gentoo/MIPS Cobalt developer, Mozilla herd member.

cioannou · Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 6:50 am Post subject:

cioannou · Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 7:25 am Post subject:

By the way , I was always wondering , how do you find all this info, especially for not current hardware. And most important how did you learn to program this stuff?

C and C++ have always been a "I have to learn" for me but never made it through. Unfortunately there are no seminars or training centers here in Greece that could help and books are not very helpful when things get tough.

cioannou · Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 4:53 pm Post subject:

Thanks a lot for the help ,

at least with the ip30.conf it starts compiling.

Will let you know.

cioannou · Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 7:21 pm Post subject:

It actually compiled and I started emerging things up to......

* Arcboot does not work on systems that can only boot pure 64bit
* ELF binaries. Arcboot needs some work to be able to compile as
* an ELF64 object. Patches are welcome!

!!! ERROR: sys-boot/arcboot-0.3.8.6-r1 failed.
!!! Function pkg_setup, Line 39, Exitcode 0
!!! No ELF64 Support
!!! If you need support, post the topmost build error, NOT this status message.

Any suggestions?

Galahad · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 126

You have 2 options:

- use arcload
- use no bootloader at all, the prom can load a linux kernel directly

Redhatter · Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2005 2:06 pm Post subject:

Heh, I don't program the stuff... I just compile, test, package & document it. :-)

That said, I do have skills in C/C++ programming -- my C knowledge being self-taught, and I've learned C++ at uni.

With the bootloader -- use arcload. Apparently there's an issue with IP30 and IP32 with booting from the volume header. Also, arcboot only handles IP22 and IP32.
arcload is not covered in the handbook, as it didn't exist at the time. However, now that it does exist (and I've figured out how to use it), you can expect a new section shortly. ;-)

_________________
Stuart Longland (a.k.a Redhatter, VK4MSL)
I haven't lost my mind - it's backed up on a tape somewhere...

Gentoo/MIPS Cobalt developer, Mozilla herd member.

cioannou · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 8:53 am Post subject:

Arcload works "fine".....

There is a small catch, the VolHdr must be large enough for the bootloader and the kernel.

It finds the kernel loads it and stops at: "Entering Kernel" , some guy from the Irc told me that the .config does not include support for the graphics console.

I will re-compile the kernel and let you know.

Another thing I noticed is that I have to ln -s various utils like "ld" , "ar" etc to their binary because during compilation it looks for other names than the ones installed.

Redhatter · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 11:22 pm Post subject:

Let me guess... mips64-linux-gnu-{as,ld,gcc}? If so, turn off Are You Using a Cross Compiler in the Kernel Hacking section of the kernel config.
Then, when building, just pass make vmlinux modules CROSS_COMPILE=mips64-unknown-linux-gnu-
_________________
Stuart Longland (a.k.a Redhatter, VK4MSL)
I haven't lost my mind - it's backed up on a tape somewhere...

Gentoo/MIPS Cobalt developer, Mozilla herd member.

Galahad · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 126

That was the good with n32, no need to cross compile, unfortunately some apps have their own .so loaders, and these don't like n32.

Redhatter · Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2005 9:21 am Post subject:

I wouldn't recommend n32 though unless you're ancipating a very bumpy ride!

Yes, some stuff works, and works very well... but then some stuff is totally FUBAR (Fscked Up Beyond All Recognition). This is the reason why n32 is not officially supported.
_________________
Stuart Longland (a.k.a Redhatter, VK4MSL)
I haven't lost my mind - it's backed up on a tape somewhere...

Gentoo/MIPS Cobalt developer, Mozilla herd member.

Galahad · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 126

I noticed that

xorg for example doesn't work at all.

cioannou · Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2005 7:25 am Post subject:

You are at a good point , I still can't get it to boot.

Redhatter · Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2005 7:43 am Post subject:

Are you seeing anything at all, either via the screen, or via serial console?
Have you got your .config somewhere handy for us to have a look at?
Have you tried using the .config from the netboot (/proc/config.gz)?
_________________
Stuart Longland (a.k.a Redhatter, VK4MSL)
I haven't lost my mind - it's backed up on a tape somewhere...

Gentoo/MIPS Cobalt developer, Mozilla herd member.

cioannou · Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2005 12:02 pm Post subject:

Redhatter · Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2005 12:24 pm Post subject:

spbecker · Retired Dev Joined: 10 Dec 2002 Posts: 73

spbecker · Retired Dev Joined: 10 Dec 2002 Posts: 73