@Hypex

Quote:

it must be uncompressed directly to "/" or the [Root] Filesystem.

Ahh...Thanks for that. I'll fix it up ASAP.

So a FFS DOS\03 partition can be recognized by Debian? I already have 2 of those on my 160Gig hard drive, how can I get them to be seen without adding an entry to fstab? Just mount them using the drive numbers...i.e. /dev/hdf or whatever it is?

I remember reading about your disk by label thing but I'm not sure I understand it completely. So just by setting the label name I don;t have to mess with drive settings each time I move my drive from one IDE controller to another?

As for my kernel experiments....I am both learning and trying to see if I can come up with a way to develop my own Debian kernel that has specific drivers I need for my system, particularly drivers for this PCI card.

You are IIRC using Debian on an AmigaOne XE? Do you have any problems with using the built in USB interface in Debian as Geri and I seem to be experiencing?

Thanks!

Scott

_________________
AmigaOne uA1-c 512M RAM - Only Amiga Makes It Possible!
Check my blog AmigaOne Computing

@scabit

Quote:

So a FFS DOS\03 partition can be recognized by Debian?

Yes, since years. And confirmed by your new thread.

Quote:

Just mount them using the drive numbers...i.e. /dev/hdf or whatever it is?

Yes, that would work, but AFAIK you need to tell it to use FFS so it recognnizes DOS3. Like so:

mount -t affs /dev/hdf /amiga.

Where "amiga" is an existing directory in the root filesystem. Adding to /etc/fstab ahoud make it sutomatic when wopking.

Quote:

So just by setting the label name I don;t have to mess with drive settings each time I move my drive from one IDE controller to another?

Yes!

Quote:

PCI card.

I wonder if you can simply compile kernel moduiles. That way you avoid compiling a complete kernel. And then just copy the files into your modules.

Of course if you need to boot off it that is another matter...

Quote:

You are IIRC using Debian on an AmigaOne XE?

Yes I have Debian Squeeze installed. But use Ubuntu 9 the most.

Quote:

Do you have any problems with using the built in USB interface in Debian as Geri and I seem to be experiencing?

\

Not much that I have noticed. And USB2 speeds work. And unlike OS4 Linux supports my USB2 card and doesn't give read errors when it tries to mount.

The only main I error I get is when I am trying to do a copy operation and don't have enough HD space to perform the copy. Since Linux like to buffer everything on disk even when it has enough RAM!

@Hypex

Quote:

mount -t affs /dev/hdf /amiga

Hmmm... I think I tried that and Lenny does not seem to have the affs file type. At least when I looked at the man info on the mount command. I'll try it again to see what happens.

Quote:

Yes I have Debian Squeeze installed. But use Ubuntu 9 the most.

Okay, so how do I go from Lenny (5) to Squeeze (6)? Doesn't that require a kernel upgrade? I really want to learn more about how to build linux kernels. I have looked at the code for the A1 patch for 2.6.18 and it is very interesting. But how do I obtain the source for 2.6.18? The Debian site no longer has links to those sources, so I can't just do an apt-get install for the 2.6.18 sources.

I see from the sourceforge AmigaLinux site there is a newer Debian kernel for the teron Amigas, currently at 2.6.38.3+ -- is there a way to install that kernel and have it work with Lenny?

Where exactly can I find which kernels go with which versions of Debian? The Debian web site doesn't help much, though I'm sure the information is hidden there somewhere.

How can I tell which version of kernels will work with Lenny?

Sorry for so many questions.....I keep trying to find the answers myself but am not finding some of them.

Thanks for your help!

Scott

Last edited by scabit on 25-Nov-2012 at 09:22 PM.

_________________
AmigaOne uA1-c 512M RAM - Only Amiga Makes It Possible!
Check my blog AmigaOne Computing

@scabit

Sorry, I was blocked with other things last week...

Quote:

scabit wrote: @Geri I look forward to a new working kernel. I have begun looking into the kernel building process and have a few questions. 1) There no longer sems to be a way to apt-get install linux-source-2.6.18, only 2.6.26 is available. Can that be used with the micro AmigaOne?

The v2.6.18 Debian Linux kernel source is still available here:

1. http://archive.debian.org/debian/pool/main/l/linux-2.6/linux-2.6_2.6.18.dfsg.1.orig.tar.gz
2. http://archive.debian.org/debian/pool/main/l/linux-2.6/linux-2.6_2.6.18.dfsg.1-26etch2.dsc
3. http://archive.debian.org/debian/pool/main/l/linux-2.6/linux-2.6_2.6.18.dfsg.1-26etch2.diff.gz

Download all three files and unpack the source using:

Quote:

dpkg-source -x linux-2.6_2.6.18.dfsg.1-26etch2.dsc

(I didn't test it here, but let me know, if it doesn't work.)

Note that you may have to install dpkg-source first. Afterwards you can go on with patching the kernel source and compiling the kernel.

On the other side I uploaded the latest 2.6.18 kernel source I could find on my machines here to the files section of the www.sourceforge.net/projects/amigaone-linux project under linux-image-old. There is also a precompiled (with the VIA SATA driver) linux-2.6.18_2.6.18_powerpc.deb Debian Linux kernel package, which you can install with:

Quote:

dpkg --install linux-2.6.18_2.6.18_powerpc.deb

All the files will be put to the right directory! It may be necessary to remove the old kernel files first or try it with dpkg's "--force-overwrite" option.

I got some warnings during compilation, so I cannot guarantee that the kernel works. Also I have no possibility to test the kernel at the moment!

Regarding the 2.6.26 kernel: the AmigaOne isn't supported by this kernel version. There was a switch from the ppc to the new powerpc architecture code (a merge of the 32 bit ppc and 64 bit ppc64 code) during the 2.6.16 to 2.6.26 kernel versions. IIRC the amigaone patches for the ppc arch didn't work well with the 2.6.26 kernel and patches for the powerpc arch are not available for this kernel version.

There is also a v2.6.31 kernel in this directory, which I don't consider as stable as the v2.6.18 kernel (although Hypex seems to be happy with it - correct me, if I'm wrong)

Quote:

2) Looking at some of the modules of the kernel (2.6.26) using make menuconfig: a) Is the correct processor choice 512x/52xx/6xx/7xx etc for G3 support? There is nothing that says G3 specifically (750fx) and the others are obviously not it!

7xx also include 750.

BTW: it may be easier, if you use the existing 2.6.18 kernel config (/boot/config-2.6.18) as a starting point!

Quote:

b) I can readily find drivers for the AC97 VT82C686, but I don't see how to select a particular video card (i.e. Radeon 7000).

There is a generic ATI radeon framebuffer driver and the radeon DRM driver. You have to stick to the frambuffer driver as the DRM drivers don't work on the AmigaOne.

Quote:

c) I notice there is something called Amiga Partition Table Support. Is that good?

It's needed, if you want to access partitions on a RDB partitioned harddisk (or install Linux on it)!

Quote:

d) It looks like most options are defaulted for an Apple Power MAC. I turned off some of the MAC specific options. Is that a good thing to do?

Most MAC options will go away anyway, if you only choose the AmigaOne platform support. MAC drivers don't really hurt, but will increase the kernel's size.

Quote:

e) Not seeing 3Com network support. Is it just generic?

No, did you look under Drivers/Network drivers (IIRC)?

Quote:

f) Do I need some special (not included) drivers for AmigaOne boards?

No, all I/O hardware is standard PC hardware.

Quote:

g) If I were to build a new kernel, is there a safe way to test it without destroying the old one? That is, once I do a "dpkg -i .deb" ... if things go bad, is there an easy way to recover after I reboot?

If the kernel differs in its name, e.g. one kernel is named 2.6.18 and the other 2.6.18-acdc, then yes. Either you specify this with EXTRAVERSION="-acdc" on the command line, when you compile the kernel, or configure it with menuconfig.

Quote:

This is all new to me, so sorry for so many questions. I really apprecaite your time helping me with this.

Didn't I say, that there will be a lot to learn!?

Quote:

Oh, by the way, I changed my a1boot.conf file to remove ide=reverse and am plugged into the onboard IDE port of my micro - working well. I have then plugged in a USB2 (VT6214) / EIDE/SATA controller PCI card and booted in Lenny. It took a LONG time to boot...it was thinking about something! Anyway, here I am typing this from IceWeasel. Anyway, lspci does NOT show my USB2 / IDE/SATA card at all. Plugging in USB devices to it does nothing that I can tell, even when I look do grep SCSI /var/log/messages - I see nothing happen (AFAIK) with the PCI based USB2 port, only the internal USB. Any idea why that would be?

Does the USB2/IDE/SATA addon card have a PCI2PCI bridge on it? If yes, then U-Boot may not have initialized it (a well known problem) and thus the devices are invisible. But the output of "lspci -vvv" would really be helpful here.

Quote:

UPDATE - just figured out the syba PCI card was not seated properly in the PCI slot. Reseated it and now lspci shows my VIA USB2 as well as VIA EIDE/SATA chips. Also there is no wait when Lenny boots up as there was before.

Ah, PEBKAC!

_________________
A1SE: G3@600MHz, 2GB, 1GBit network card
A1XE: G4@933MHz, 2GB, refitted AC'97 codec
microA1: G3@800MHz, 1GB

- A1 Linux support -

@Hypex

Quote:

Hypex wrote: @scabit I have a DOS3 FFS partition I used to share with Linux. But I don't recall adding it to fstab.

It just mounts the partition automatically during boot.

Quote:

You will need to label it in the partitioner or a tool such as GParted.

Or just use "e2label /dev/hdaxy my-uber-cool-label" or "tune2fs /dev/hdaxy -L whatever-label".

_________________
A1SE: G3@600MHz, 2GB, 1GBit network card
A1XE: G4@933MHz, 2GB, refitted AC'97 codec
microA1: G3@800MHz, 1GB

- A1 Linux support -

@scabit

Quote:

scabit wrote: @Hypex Quote: mount -t affs /dev/hdf /amiga Hmmm... I think I tried that and Lenny does not seem to have the affs file type. At least when I looked at the man info on the mount command. I'll try it again to see what happens.

"man mount" shows you the options for affs.

Quote:

Okay, so how do I go from Lenny (5) to Squeeze (6)? Doesn't that require a kernel upgrade? I really want to learn more about how to build linux kernels. I have looked at the code for the A1 patch for 2.6.18 and it is very interesting. But how do I obtain the source for 2.6.18? The Debian site no longer has links to those sources, so I can't just do an apt-get install for the 2.6.18 sources.

Debian Squeeze may run better with a newer kernel version (some udev dependencies, etc.). I use it with the 2.6.31 and 2.6.32 kernel you can find on the http://sourceforge.net/projects/amigaone-linux/ project homepage.

Quote:

I see from the sourceforge AmigaLinux site there is a newer Debian kernel for the teron Amigas, currently at 2.6.38.3+ -- is there a way to install that kernel and have it work with Lenny?

I never tested this kernel with Lenny. What is more important about all 2.6.3x kernels you find on the amigaone-linux site is that they require a initramfs for booting, as the actual kernel image doesn't contain any drivers. There is a combined kernel and initramfs image available for the 2.6.31 kernel version (boot.img.amigaone-2.6.31-1-powerpc), but for the other kernels you would have to generate them on your own. However there is a problem with the size of the resulting boot image. Debian normally includes a lot of drivers in the initramfs image. Unfortunately large boot images (>= ~16 MB) seem to crash the SLB or U-Boot.
I already have a workaround for this, but my A1 is still out of order.

Quote:

Where exactly can I find which kernels go with which versions of Debian? The Debian web site doesn't help much, though I'm sure the information is hidden there somewhere.

That is hard to tell, because some userspace tools (like udev) depend on specific kernel options. That's the reason why I usually start with a Debian kernel config, when I configure and compile a kernel.

_________________
A1SE: G3@600MHz, 2GB, 1GBit network card
A1XE: G4@933MHz, 2GB, refitted AC'97 codec
microA1: G3@800MHz, 1GB

- A1 Linux support -

@scabit

Quote:

Hmmm... I think I tried that and Lenny does not seem to have the affs file type.

It should work if the kernel modules support it. And they are wotking.

Quote:

Okay, so how do I go from Lenny (5) to Squeeze (6)

Yes it does require a newer kernel but Geri has linked a 2.6.31 kernel to save you the work.

This one works. Well it works okay here.

Quote:

I see from the sourceforge AmigaLinux site there is a newer Debian kernel for the teron Amigas, currently at 2.6.38.3+ -- is there a way to install that kernel and have it work with Lenny?

There is. Slightly more work. But the docs should be where you can download the kernel. It is comparible to 2.6.31. One issue I have with both these kernels is that at times it looses the drive controller and looks for drives on my empty onboard IDE. Then fails and drops to the initramfs CLI. Exiting usually finds it. This appears to happen at random.

Quote:

Where exactly can I find which kernels go with which versions of Debian?

I examined the binary of the Debian installers kernel!

You can find info here. IIRC 2.6.18 is fine for Debiann 5 and below. But Debian 6+ needs 2.6.31.

Oh BTW, you can install multiple versions of kernels. The kernels will go in the /boot directory. And the modules have their own place. So to switch a kernel all you need is to duplicate the entry in /boot/a1boot.conf and change the kernel filename.

@Geri

okay, I downloaded the 3 2.6.18 source files from your links and did the dpkg-source -x linux-2.6.........

I got a warning ....

/root/.gnupg/gpg.conf does not exists - creating....
then

options in /root/.gnupg/gpg.conf not yet active

as well as a "can't check signature" message

Does that mean everything is okay? Now that the kernel files are on my debian partition, where exactly are they? I need some sort of visual here. Where is the normal place for source packages to be kept?

Now...I am becoming confused about the kernel packages and how they work.

Currently, I have a directory named /boot which contains a kernel-2.6.18.img and a kernelhd-2.6.18.img
I have a file a1boot.conf that points to one of these images (i use the HD one to save time ... it does't need to decompress).
The file you gave me linux-2.6.18_2.6.18_powerpc.deb ..... what does that do? Does it generate a new .img file for me to use?
I see online examples of GRUB allowing you to choose which kernel (from a list of those available) to boot under. Isn't grub the sort of equivalent to uboot? Is there any way with the current uboot system on the micro A1 to have it show you a list of available kernels so you can choose which one to boot from? Or is it a matter of changing the /boot/kernelxxx.img file pointed to by the a/1boot.conf file? Can I have several kernel images installed in /boot and have different a1boot.conf file entries so I can get a list of kernels to choose from when I boot, or will that not work?
Other than the kernel image file, what other files are used for the kernel? The .img isn't just a static compilation of everything you need? With the current kernel2.6.18.img, do I need to have a /boot/lib/modules/2.6.18 folder with all the right stuff, or is that uneccesary?
If I DO need to have a /boot/lib/modules/2.6.18 folder, and I install your new 2.6.18 kernel with the SATA driver, will it overwrite these modules? can I rename the higher level directory i.e. /boot/lib/ to /boot/lib_ORIGINAL and THEN install your new kernel?
There are starting to be files all over the place that I am not sure about why they are there. I have looked online for a simply overview of where debian puts files and how the kernel files are organized but haven't found anything useful.
Linux users remind me of a bunch of kids who know the exact 20 step way to solve a puzzle but don't write it down anywhere because its kind of cool to be the one to know how to solve the puzzle! I'm not saying that about you or Hypex - you guys are great. Thanks again for taking the time to explain this stuff. But why is it so hard to find an overview of how kernel packages work and where everything goes for Debian?

Okay...that's enough questions for now! Thanks!

Scott

_________________
AmigaOne uA1-c 512M RAM - Only Amiga Makes It Possible!
Check my blog AmigaOne Computing

@Hypex

Quote:

Hypex wrote: @scabit There is. Slightly more work. But the docs should be where you can download the kernel. It is comparible to 2.6.31. One issue I have with both these kernels is that at times it looses the drive controller and looks for drives on my empty onboard IDE. Then fails and drops to the initramfs CLI. Exiting usually finds it. This appears to happen at random.

What do you mean with "looses the drive controller"? Sounds like a timing issue. Can you try the rootdelay=x (x...seconds) kernel option?

Quote:

Oh BTW, you can install multiple versions of kernels. The kernels will go in the /boot directory. And the modules have their own place. So to switch a kernel all you need is to duplicate the entry in /boot/a1boot.conf and change the kernel filename.

The kernel modules need to match the kernel name, but yes, as long as the kernel names are different you can install multiple kernels.

_________________
A1SE: G3@600MHz, 2GB, 1GBit network card
A1XE: G4@933MHz, 2GB, refitted AC'97 codec
microA1: G3@800MHz, 1GB

- A1 Linux support -

@Geri

Quote:

The kernel modules need to match the kernel name, but yes, as long as the kernel names are different you can install multiple kernels.

Yep...just tried it with the kernel-2.6.18.img versus the kernelhd-2.6.18.img, put both in the a1boot.conf calling one Lenny and the other LennyHD and now uboot gives me the options:
OS4.1 update 5
Lenny
LennyHD

So that works great. Thanks.
So if I install your 2.6.18 kernel with SATA, it will be named different than the regular 2.6.18 kernel? That is, it will creat a folder with a name different than /boot/lib/modules/2.6.18 ?

I hope so! I'm about to try it!

Scott

Last edited by scabit on 27-Nov-2012 at 04:41 PM.

_________________
AmigaOne uA1-c 512M RAM - Only Amiga Makes It Possible!
Check my blog AmigaOne Computing

@scabit

Quote:

scabit wrote: @Geri okay, I downloaded the 3 2.6.18 source files from your links and did the dpkg-source -x linux-2.6......... I got a warning .... /root/.gnupg/gpg.conf does not exists - creating.... then options in /root/.gnupg/gpg.conf not yet active as well as a "can't check signature" message Does that mean everything is okay?

The signature is only used to verify that the files content wasn't modified, after Debian signed it. At least the error doesn't hurt and I think you can ignore it for the old etch packages.

Quote:

Now that the kernel files are on my debian partition, where exactly are they? I need some sort of visual here.

Where you downloaded them.

Quote:

Where is the normal place for source packages to be kept?

Normally the kernel source is installed (if you would do "apt-get install linux-source-2.6.18") in /usr/src/, but this is not necessary. You can compile the kernel everywhere.

Quote:

Now...I am becoming confused about the kernel packages and how they work. Currently, I have a directory named /boot which contains a kernel-2.6.18.img and a kernelhd-2.6.18.img I have a file a1boot.conf that points to one of these images (i use the HD one to save time ... it does't need to decompress). The file you gave me linux-2.6.18_2.6.18_powerpc.deb ..... what does that do? Does it generate a new .img file for me to use?

It installs a gzip compressed kernel image named "uImage-2.6.18" in /boot/.

Quote:

I see online examples of GRUB allowing you to choose which kernel (from a list of those available) to boot under. Isn't grub the sort of equivalent to uboot?

Yes, but more a equivalent to the slb (at least for the old u-boot version our A1s have).

Quote:

Is there any way with the current uboot system on the micro A1 to have it show you a list of available kernels so you can choose which one to boot from? Or is it a matter of changing the /boot/kernelxxx.img file pointed to by the a/1boot.conf file? Can I have several kernel images installed in /boot and have different a1boot.conf file entries so I can get a list of kernels to choose from when I boot, or will that not work?

You can have several kernel images (with different names) in /boot, but all you have to do is to just add another entry to the a1boot.conf file.

Quote:

Other than the kernel image file, what other files are used for the kernel? The .img isn't just a static compilation of everything you need? With the current kernel2.6.18.img, do I need to have a /boot/lib/modules/2.6.18 folder with all the right stuff, or is that uneccesary?

Normaly there is also a System.map file (which contains information used for debugging in case of a kernel panic) and a vmlinux file (a raw kernel image executable, which is not used on the A1) in /boot/. The modules are needed, because the kernel image only contains the most important drivers. But theoretically you could forget about the modules, if everything important is in the kernel image.

Quote:

If I DO need to have a /boot/lib/modules/2.6.18 folder, and I install your new 2.6.18 kernel with the SATA driver, will it overwrite these modules? can I rename the higher level directory i.e. /boot/lib/ to /boot/lib_ORIGINAL and THEN install your new kernel?

There should be no /boot/lib directory. The modules are under /lib/modules/. You can make a backup of the /lib/modules/2.6.18 directory, because my kernel package will overwrite it. But do not rename the /lib/ directory under any circumstances!

Quote:

There are starting to be files all over the place that I am not sure about why they are there. I have looked online for a simply overview of where debian puts files and how the kernel files are organized but haven't found anything useful.

The kernel files are in /boot/, lib/modules/ and some in /etc/ (configuration files only, if the kernel comes in a Debian package).

Quote:

Linux users remind me of a bunch of kids who know the exact 20 step way to solve a puzzle but don't write it down anywhere because its kind of cool to be the one to know how to solve the puzzle!

Quote:

I'm not saying that about you or Hypex - you guys are great. Thanks again for taking the time to explain this stuff.

Thanks. You're welcome.

Quote:

But why is it so hard to find an overview of how kernel packages work and where everything goes for Debian?

A Debian package contains two archives, a control and a data archive. A file installed by a Debian package is simply extracted out of the data archive to the root of the file system. So wherever a file goes, it is in the exact same place in the Debian package's data archive.

_________________
A1SE: G3@600MHz, 2GB, 1GBit network card
A1XE: G4@933MHz, 2GB, refitted AC'97 codec
microA1: G3@800MHz, 1GB

- A1 Linux support -

@scabit

Quote:

scabit wrote: @Geri Quote: The kernel modules need to match the kernel name, but yes, as long as the kernel names are different you can install multiple kernels. Yep...just tried it with the kernel-2.6.18.img versus the kernelhd-2.6.18.img, put both in the a1boot.conf calling one Lenny and the other LennyHD and now uboot gives me the options: OS4.1 update 5 Lenny LennyHD So that works great. Thanks.

In this case it works, because both kernel images search their modules in /lib/modules/2.6.18 (and they are probably the same kernel images, only one of them not compressed).

Quote:

So if I install your 2.6.18 kernel with SATA, it will be named different than the regular 2.6.18 kernel? That is, it will creat a folder with a name different than /boot/lib/modules/2.6.18 ?

No, I'm not talking about the kernel image's file name, but rather it's internal version string, which is used to find the modules directory. And this version string is still "2.6.18" and thus points to /lib/modules/2.6.18 !

Quote:

I hope so! I'm about to try it!

Sorry to disappoint you.

_________________
A1SE: G3@600MHz, 2GB, 1GBit network card
A1XE: G4@933MHz, 2GB, refitted AC'97 codec
microA1: G3@800MHz, 1GB

- A1 Linux support -

@Geri

Quote:

No, I'm not talking about the kernel image's file name, but rather it's internal version string, which is used to find the mod

So, do I need to do a depmod to have the modules for your new kernel be properly set up?

I added the uImage-2.6.18 to my /boot/a1boot.conf file as LennySATA, and I can boot from it. But as you pointed out, because it is still using 2.6.18 it is simply using the modules from the existing /boot/lib/modules/2.6.18 folder, and not your new stuff...is that correct?

Does depmod fix that? If not, where exactly are the modules I need to have in /boot/lib/modules/2.6.18 that correspond to your uImage-2.6.18 image file?

Thanks,

Scott

_________________
AmigaOne uA1-c 512M RAM - Only Amiga Makes It Possible!
Check my blog AmigaOne Computing

@Geri

Okay, things are making more sense. Thank you!

I got your recently compiled kernel loaded and it boots just fine. I still get a few codec errors at bootup (same as I did with the kernelhd-2.6.18.img kernel), but it loads okay.
One thing I notice is that it still has the same USB issues as the kernelhd-2.6.18.img I was using. Specifically, any time I use a USB device, or if I start Lenny with say a USB mouse plugged in, Lenny locks up within a few minutes. Requires a power off or physical reset.
Did you happen to apply the USB patch for the A1 that was written around 2008 or so to handle the dma cache coherency issues with USB to this kernel new you gave me? I hope the answer is no and that that patch (on sourceforge) will solve my USB issues. Otherwise, I have yet to have any version of Linux so far (etch did the same thing) that actually works with USB. The rear ports are just as bad as the front ones on my micro A1 under Lenny.
Anyway, I'll try moving my hardware around tomorrow and see if the VIA SATA card works with your new kernel.

Thanks!

Scott

_________________
AmigaOne uA1-c 512M RAM - Only Amiga Makes It Possible!
Check my blog AmigaOne Computing

@Geri

Quote:

It just mounts the partition automatically during boot.

What in fstab? Or simply havving an AFFS volume will be found and mounted at boot by Linux?

Quote:

Or just use

Thanks. Good to know.

Last edited by Hypex on 30-Nov-2012 at 02:46 PM.

@Geri

Quote:

What do you mean with "looses the drive controller"?

What I mean is it doesn't detect the drives on the used controller. I'm only using the 0680 IDE and it starts looking for drives on the VIA IDE. So it spends its time looking for drives and resetting the busses only to fail and drop into the initramfs.

It almost seems pointless as usually I can type "exit" straight away and it instantly finds the drives!

Of course this means I can't rely directly on specifying a drive as /dev/hdxy anywhere. Since my drive could be on /dev/hdc or /dev/hdg.

I wish the kennel would look at the UBoot vars!

Quote:

Can you try

Sure. I'll report back.

But I'd rather a controllerskip option.

One thing I also notice. I also can get lots of USB messages. Unable to add hub device or something. I then plug in a drive onto my front USB port and it shuts up! :?

This is motherboard ports.

Last edited by Hypex on 30-Nov-2012 at 02:47 PM.

@scabit

Quote:

But as you pointed out, because it is still using 2.6.18 it is simply using the modules from the existing /boot/lib/modules/2.6.18 folder, and not your new stuff...is that correct?

No that's not correct as it doesn't use any /boot/lib/modules/2.6.18 folder at all!

The correct folder for the second time is:
/lib/modules/2.6.18 folder

@Hypex

Quote:

No that's not correct as it doesn't use any /boot/lib/modules/2.6.18 folder at all!

Yes, I understand. What I did was to make a copy of the /lib/modules folder in /boot so I would have a backup, which is good since Geri's latest 2.6.18 kernel overwrote the stuff in /lib/modules anyway. But because I had a copy in /boot (I made it after I first installed the kernelhd-2.6.18.img) it confused me until I remembered what I had done.

Thanks,

Scott

Last edited by scabit on 28-Nov-2012 at 03:26 PM.

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@Hypex

Do you remember if the kernelhd-2.6.18 had the cache coherency issue A1 patch for USB applied to it?

This is what I think is going on...please correct me if any of this is wrong...

It seems (from reading the USB 2 official specifications) that since EHCI uses DMA for data transfer, any machine which uses an EHCI driver and has cache coherency problems with dma access must have a patch or workaround in order for usb to work properly.
The micro A1 ( and I think teron A1SE and A1XE) boards all have this cache coherency issue related to the PowerPC 750 processor. This showed up first with the fact that the original uboot on the A1's did not allow anything but PIO for the onboard IDE, and any attempt at DMA for the onboard IDE resulted in many errors. This got fixed on the linux side with a patch (which can be found here on sourceforge. ) Similarly, there is a patch for the EHCI USB and audio (ASLA) components in linux as well.
I am looking for a 2.6.18 kernel that has these patches installed, plus the VIA SATA Driver incorporated so I can test a combo USB/SATA PCI card in my micro AmigaOne. In OS4.1 update 5, the USB ports in this new card work...but only if I disable the EHCI module in the OS4 kernel....which makes me suspect this same EHCI cache coherency issue is the culprit in OS4 as well as linux in getting USB2 to work.
Now, the onboard USB on a micro is only USB 1.1, I know, but from what I can understand, even using USB1.1 with a driver written for USB 2 (and thus having an EHCI component) causes problems on a system with cache coherency DMA issues unless those issues are addressed. The kernell linux patch for USB should fix my USB issues in linux. If it does not, there still needs to be some work done to get this cache coherency problem fixed. But I am not sure yet if I have used a linux kernel that has the USB patch applied.

Does this make sense?

Scott

Last edited by scabit on 28-Nov-2012 at 03:53 PM.

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AmigaOne uA1-c 512M RAM - Only Amiga Makes It Possible!
Check my blog AmigaOne Computing

@Geri

Okay, I have your kernel with SATA support. I connect a SATA drive to my SYBA PCI card SATA port and boot the AmigaOne into Lenny.
Here is what dmesg shows me about the SATA.....

sata_via 0000:00:08.3: version 2.0
sata_via 0000:00:08.3: routed to hard irq line 9
ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x802440 ctl 0x80244A bmdma 0x802480 irq 9
ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x802450 ctl 0x80245A bmdma 0x802488 irq 9
scsi0 : sata_via
ata1: SATA link down (SStatus 9F9F9F9F SControl 9F9F9F9F)
ATA: abnormal status 0x8 on port 0x802447
scsi1 : sata_via
ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 9F9F9F9F SControl 9F9F9F9F)
ATA: abnormal status 0x8 on port 0x802457
PCI: Enabling device 0000:00:05.0 (0084 -> 0085)
cannot find the slot for index 0 (range 0-1)


I set the drive up previously by connecting it to a different IDE port (my SATA drive is really an IDE drive with an IDE to SATA converter on it), and partitioning it with two ext3 partitions. On each partition I copied a directory - videos on one, documents on another, so I could identify them if I neede to by content.

So what does the listing above mean? Is there anything I can attempt to mount? I have tried mounting it like this: mount -t ext3 /dev/sda /mnt/hdb2 using everything from sda1 to sda8, sdb, etc...no success.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

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AmigaOne uA1-c 512M RAM - Only Amiga Makes It Possible!
Check my blog AmigaOne Computing