[Debian-ppc64-devel] problems with debian ppc64 on openpower710

[Matthew Cocker]

Hi

I am trying to get debain srage running on our two new openpower710s but 
am having problems with the yaboot setup.

I am using the cd image from

http://ftp.uni-augsburg.de/pub/tuxppc/test/Debian-Installer-CD/Debian-ppc64-boot.iso
and following the instructions at

http://debian.gonicus.de/debian/dists/testing/main/disks-powerpc/current/pseries/install.txt

as best I can. The problem I have run into is that I can not seem to 
format a type 41 partition no matter what I do in the partman stage. If 
I forget about this step for now and except a default partition scheme 
on sdb, the install downloads the first stage to sdb1. I can then exit 
to a shell, chroot to /target, run sbin/cfdisk to create a ppc prep boot 
partition on sda. I then went back and redid the partitioning installing 
the system again on sda2 (/) and sda5 (swap), I can then get the yaboot 
install to work but now on reboot I have


boot:

Please wait, loading kernel...
	Elf32 kernel loaded
Loading ramdisk...
ramdisk loaded at 02100000, size: 1904 Kbytes
instantiating rtas at 0060000 ...


And that is it. Nothing else happens. So after buggering around for a 
day to get the box to boot now I hit another hurdle.

Anyone how to get a bootable system?


If I can get a working debian box I want to figure out if I can use 
softraid or a lvm for a debian system on ppc64. At the moment I have had 
to use suse 9 sp2 as the vio server on the openpower710s but I would 
like to use debian eventually (710 does not has hwraid option, knew we 
should have purchased the 720s).


cheers

Matt