AmigaOne Debian Jessie Linux Install CD release!

Have you ever seen Debian Jessie's Girl and wondered why your AmigaOne can't have a Linux like that? Well now it can!

I wish you a belated Merry Christmas everyone and I present to you the AmigaOne Linux Debian Jessie's Girl Install CD. Now your AmigaOne can have a Linux like that. Pun intended!

Whether you are a Linux lover, Linux liker or Linux casual this is for you. After months of off and on going work for years we are ready to give to you the results and rewards of an even better Linux installing experience.

The new AmigaOne Linux installer provides the following advancements over my initial Debian Etch installer, which are explained in more depth below:


At a glance:

1.) Autobooting CD with menu.
2.) More complete installer image with needed kernel modules included.
3.) A complete Debian installer in one CD image.
4.) Simplified and cleaner install process.
5.) Sanity checks to verify your boot partition will work.
6.) A fully working system with kernel, modules and Linux menu all automatically installed!

You can already see this is exciting news.


In detail:

1.) Thanks to the work done by Giuseppe Coviello and Michal Schulz for the AROS SLB (Second Level Booter) ub2lb, I can now produce autobooting CDs that even feature a menu! This is a long wanted feature and really eases the booting of the "dreaded" Linux installer CD.

2.) The installer image which boots the Linux installer is now fully customised to include AmigaOne kernel modules required for boot. This ensures no errors arise from the kernel about missing modules and is also needed for access to drives.

3.) No more does the A1 install CD need you to also download a Debian CD image. But it comes as a full install CD with Debian packages included. Only one CD image is all you need for a complete install.

4.) Thanks to what's known as a preseed, the install process can be automated. A preseed allows predetermined actions to be taken and is used to simplify installation by reducing questions asked to what's needed and silencing annoying notes, warnings or harmless errors that we don't need to see.

5.) After you set up your partitions the installer will check your boot partition to make sure it meets the requirements. If it fails the test you will see an error where it failed. It will also display a summary of requirements. From here you can go back and correct any problems in the partitioner.

6.) Also making use of a pressed, a set of scripts are run that complete the install process by installing the kernel, modules and adding a Linux menu for making Debian ready for use right away! Never again will you need to boot an incomplete system only to enter cryptic commands to unpack files. It will all be done for you. With a progress bar!


As you can tell, this is already quite an advancement over my First Debian install CD which will look primitive by comparison. Even my Squeeze beta install CD is left in the shadows as this install CD actually works. Even compared to installing Debian on an officially supported PPC Mac, my new installer is easier and more modern. And dare I say, it will kick butt, compared to the X1000 Linux installers from the dark ages!


What's needed?

Unlike my previous installer, the new installer features a complete Debian CD image. Including a customised AmigaOne installer image and kernel files. So all you need is an AmigaOne and some space on your HDD. Plus the new A1 install CD image.

You can grab it here from the AmigaOne Linux support page:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/amigaone-linux/files/debian-installer/


Preparation required for Linux

You will need to reserve space for a boot partition, a (main) root partition and swap partition, all setup to go. I like to set this up in OS4 using MediaToolbox on the Amiga side. So that Linux uses existing partitions and doesn't attempt to create new partitions itself. Just to be safe. The settings for these partitions are set out below for use with MediaToolbox.


Boot:
Boot partition. This stores the UBoot kernel images loaded by the SLB. Kernel images can easily take up 25MB.
Minimum size 50MB to a comfortable 100MB.
Type set as "LNX0" or Identifier 4C4E5800.
Marked as bootable.
It must be on a standard Amiga RDB partitioned drive as setup by MediaToolbox.
It must exist on the same HD as the SLB is installed.
It must be a partition after your AmigaOS4 Workbench boot partition.
It must be first Linux partition on disk.

Root:
Main Linux partition. The system itself will easily take up 5GB. You can store your home folder on another partition also.
Minimum size 5GB and 10GB to be comfortable.
Type set as "LNX0" or Identifier 4C4E5800.

Swap:
Swap space partition for virtual memory.
Benchmark for this is double your physical RAM. Up to 2GB is fine.
Type set as "SWP0" or Identifier 53575000.

You can locate the root and swap partitions where you like on your HDD. But the boot partition must reside in a particular place to be picked up by the SLB and be bootable. Check it meets the above known requirements.


Once all this is set in place you are good to go.


Booting the installer

This is the easy part. Insert the installer CD in your optical drive. And turn on your A1 or reset it if on.

If you have CD booting enabled wait for UBoot to pick up the CD and autoboot it.

If you don't have CD booting enabled then wait for UBoot to read drives and press the return key as it does. UBoot should then present you with a mini menu. You can select your optical drive controller and tell it to boot off CD. Then confirm this choice.


Installer menu

Once booted you will be presented with a boot menu. This contains the following boot selections and some options below with the key assigned to it. The options included in case your A1 is particular and needs certain things disabled. These options will also be applied to the installed boot menu.

Selections:
Install Debian Jessie. This is the standard install.
Install Debian Jessie (Expert Mode). Will present some expert options for those who wish to customise.
Rescue Debian Jessie's Girl. This is an emergency boot from CD in case you need a rescue mode for your Linux install.

Options:
D - DMA. This will disable drive DMA for HD only, CD only or all drives.
U - USB. Will disable USB.
C - Cache: Will disable CPU cache.
I - Import. In case you have special kernel settings this will import your Uboot args and include them. So to use the Import option you will need to have the bootargs variable set up from UBoot. It will filter out any extra args and add them to both the installer boot args as well as the installed system boot args.

You can cursor up and down to pick your boot selection and press return to boot the Linux installer. A message will come up that it is loading the kernel. Just give it some minutes for UBoot to load in a 15MB image. And boot the image.


Debian awakens

Once Debian has loaded up you will see the kernel boot. And pass control to the installer. At this point you will see mounting messages scroll down the screen. These are harmless and you can ignore them.

Now it will load the AmigaOne kernel packages from disc into memory and display a message telling you so. If there is a problem you can retry.


Main installer

You will now be in the main installer. Set your language, country and keymap.

It will then scan the CD and load packages.

The network will be setup. It will ask for a hostname and domain. Leave these at default if they don't concern you.

Now your account settings. Enter a root password and verify it. Your full name (if you like), user name, password and verify it.

Set the clock.

The partitioner will now load. And scan your drives. For some reason it takes a while to scan drives. BTW it can also scan over USB and USB devices will be added to the drive list.


Partitioning

You will now see a list of drives and partitions. Unfortunately partman isn't too descriptive at listing partitions. So if you have given them labels it won't list them. A quick solution if you are lost (like I have been when I didn't have my written list) is to enter a console (Ctrl-Alt-F2 will do it) and run a blkid command. This will list labels if you have them. Then Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get back.

Boot:
If you have a preexisting boot partition the SLB already picks up with a menu then the installer will locate this and use it. In this case make sure it is the only partition with an a1boot.conf menu file. It will also pick up and use any volume labelled as "a1boot". You won't need to do any configuration for the boot partition in this case. And can skip the following section.

If you need to set up a boot partition do as follows. Cursor to your desired boot partition and select it. Use as Ext2. Mount point set to "/boot/a1boot" option in list for static files of boot loader. If you like to you can label it as "a1boot". Mark it for formatting for a fresh boot partition. This will then format it to the right format as understood by UBoot.

You can also just mount a preexisting boot partition at mount point set to "/boot/a1boot". You don't even need to type that in. It's all there in the menu for the picking.

Root:
Cursor to your desired root partition and select it. Use as Ext4. Mount point set to root option in list. Mark it for formatting.

Swap:
Cursor to your desired root partition and select it. Use as Swap. It will figure out itself if swap needs formatting.

Check all is well in your setup then confirm it to format and continue.


Boot check

After your partitions are set up and formatted a sanity check will be performed on the boot partition. This will first check if the boot partition is mounted. If it is unmounted then it will attempt to locate it. If it isn't found then it will throw you an error. If it's mounted it will then do sanity checks, checking for valid RDB, SLB, boot flag, DOS type, inodes, that it comes after a Workbench volume and is first Linux partition. As you can tell that is a lot of checks. If any fail it will throw an error, summarise the requirements and drop you back to the partitioner. However if the boot partition passes the test then the installer will continue unabated.


Base system

The Debian base system will now be installed. This is the shortest amount of Debian packages installed and takes the least time. Should be done in under half an hour.


Software selection

Once this is done you can select any extra software to install. You can also select any extra desktop as well. But please remember, that Gnome and its log in manager are now incompatible, so you need a desktop that doesn't depend on it. The default LXDE selected works out of the box and will give you a working desktop.

Make your picks and they will be installed. This is the longest amount of Debian packages installed and takes the most time. Expect it to take to an hour on average.


AmigaOne packages

The installer will now finalise the installation for the AmigaOne. You will see a progress bar and a message telling you what it is installing. It will go through five stages; of configuring files and setting up boot partition; installing kernel, modules and other required packages; creating UBoot image, creating boot menu entries and finalising the installation.

This shouldn't take more than a few minutes. It is the most important process for a bootable system but also the shortest. The core of the AmigaOne install happens at this last point.

All in all, it usually takes around two hours to install, including CD boot and user set up. This is measured using a DMA IDE interface, with a DVD at UDMA/66, and HDD at UDMA/100. Depending on the speed of your hardware, including using a network mirror, and your HDD, it may take less.


Finalising

Well I hope for those interested in running Linux on the AmigaOne/XE/SE and µA1 that this is useful for you. And worth the wait as well as our effort. It brings to the AmigaOne platform a more modern Linux experience. Not only for ease of installation but the last official release of Debian for the PPC32 architecture.

You can of course bring any feed back here. Feed back is welcome. Common issues would be known.

Good luck!


Credits

Boot and menu code:
Giuseppe Coviello and Michal Schulz.

Linux kernel, A1Boot packages and project management:
Gerhard Pircher.

Remix and post production of installer:
Damien Stewart.

Last edited by Hypex on 10-Feb-2018 at 04:59 AM.

AmigaOne Linux Debian Jessie Net Install CD release!

Hello everyone. For those who would prefer a net installer I have made one available. This reduces the installer CD image to just over 40MB. It boots the same way as the standard full installer image.

The install method is slightly different as it has a focus on setting up a net connection. Locating a repository rather than a CD. But the rest of the process is the same.

It can also be used as a mini rescue CD if needed.

Direct download is here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/amigaone-linux/files/debian-installer/A1%20Linux%20Net%20Installer.iso/download

Last edited by Hypex on 14-Jun-2018 at 08:50 AM.

AmigaOne Linux Debian Jessie USB booter release!

Hi guys. That's right. I have now produced a USB Booter. This is a hybrid disk image that you can write to either USB or disc and it will boot off either one!

Both the full and net installer images are enabled for USB and disc booting.


Writing the image

If you intend to write the image to a CD disc type then it will work as before and you can continue to do this.

If you want to try the USB booter the full ISO image must be written to a USB disk. Note that this will destroy the contents as it must be overwritten on from the start.

From Linux you can use a tool such as USB Image Writer or dd on the terminal. For other systems any tool that can write an image to a USB disk should be fine.

For OS4 there is RawDisk in with Workbench Utilities. To use this insert your USB stick. I also recommend pulling any other USB disk devices out to avoid confusion. Now Open RawDisk. From the top left gadget select the USB device with Disk Name. This will usually be USB0 with only one device inserted. Next change Direction to point left to the device. Then select the image with File. In the Addressing section make sure all the starting blocks are zero. It needs to be written to the start of the disk. Once confirmed all settings are correct press Start and watch it go.


Booting the installer

If you are already set for booting from USB and you have USB as a boot source then you just need to plug it in and reboot.

Easiest way next is to press return while UBoot is loading up to break the boot and select USB as boot source. If it fails to boot then UBoot needs to scan for media. Doing a "usb scan" on the command line will do that. Then a boota command should boot it.

To simply manually USB boot it from the command line enter this:
usb scan; setenv boot1 usb; boota

To get USB autoboot working, if you haven't set up USB booting before, then UBoot needs to be told to scan any USB media. Though USB can be specified as a boot source like any other, it also needs to scan for a media device, or UBoot will fail to detect USB devices. The bootcmd variable can be modified to do this, so USB devices are scanned on boot, as follows. You can then set USB as a boot source and it will autoboot like any CD or HDD.
bootcmd=usb scan; menu; run menuboot_cmd
saveenv

You will now be able to autoboot USB devices from boot up provided it is set as a boot source.

If you see UBoot scanning the USB bus and it fails to pick it up or stalls then a reset should fix this.

Note that USB booting is only supported from the onboard USB ports.


Universal Boot Loader

Once it starts loading off USB it will first load in the Universal Boot Loader or UBL. UBL is a USB booter I wrote that will locate and chain load the ISO9660 boot block in the CD image. It will then pass control over to that and the booting process will continue as normal.

UBL is a mini booter that's encoded like SLB boot code and will take only a few seconds to load in. Then it will just take a few seconds more loading in the proper boot block and present a boot menu. It does a few sanity checks along the way so if there is a problem loading any code there should be an error. Loading the installer image from USB will take a few minutes and you will see dots fill up the screen.

If you are running the full installer from USB and have a USB2 card you wish to make use of, then you can boot the installer from an onboard USB port, and switch it to a USB2 port once the kernel image has loaded in.

For the net installer it won't make much difference as the only thing loaded in from USB once it starts are the A1 kernel packages.


Installer images

Installer images available in the usual place.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/amigaone-linux/files/debian-installer

Last edited by Hypex on 17-Jun-2018 at 03:19 PM.
Last edited by Hypex on 17-Jun-2018 at 03:15 PM.

@Hypex

Congratulation again!

BTW: if somebody is the proud owner of an A1 equipped with a 7457 PPC CPU, then please let us know, if the installer/system boots without lockups!

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

- A1 Linux support -

@Hypex

Brilliant work. Very impressed.

I'll report back as soon as I can.

Thank you Hypex!

_________________
Fred Booth
========================================
A500, A600, A1200 c/w Mediator and 030
AmigaOne and OS4.1
Mac LCII, G4 Powermac running OSX + Amigakit and MorphOS 3.0
Dell Mini 10 Netbook running IcAros and AmigaForever+Amikit+AmigaSys
2006 Macb

Thanks! Will this work on a microA1?

@Geri

Yes super.

@softwarefailure

It definitely should work!

I have running Debian on my microA1, but I did not use this installer for the installation (yet).

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

- A1 Linux support -

@Hypex

Very nice work. I will test it as soon as I get my A1-XE-G3 up and running again. 😎

Last edited by Controller on 11-Feb-2018 at 12:04 PM.

@Hypex

Nice! I look forward to finally getting Linux working on my A1XE!!

_________________
All glory to the Hypnotoad!

@Controller

Thank you Controller and also everyone for the kind words. I must say, you don't look so controlling with that cute puppy dog look on your face? Ha.

BTW, what is this A1-X3 you speak of? Sound three times better than my A1-XE. Wish I had one!

@Hypex

AmigaOS = remember when computing was fun?
Linux = remember when computing was just plain frustrating!!

am only having a joke here as am currently spending the day off today trying to install Debian 9 on the X5000 after a few failed attempts, so well done Mr. Hypex for helping out your fellow A1-XE users.

_________________
Amigaone X5000/20 4GB Radeon RX 550 Polaris 12 AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition Update 1
Amiga 1200 Workbench 3.1.4
Amiga CD32

@outrun1978

Are you using my ramdisk and instructions ?
http://forum.hyperion-entertainment.biz/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=3776#p41558
And if so were are you having the problem ?

Quote:

outrun1978 wrote: @Hypex AmigaOS = remember when computing was fun? Linux = remember when computing was just plain frustrating!! am only having a joke here as am currently spending the day off today trying to install Debian 9 on the X5000 after a few failed attempts, so well done Mr. Hypex for helping out your fellow A1-XE users.

_________________
Sam460ex : Radeon Rx550 Single slot Video Card : SIL3112 SATA card

@Spectre660

i am following your instructions Btw thanks for the work both you and Xeno 74 do on the Linux side am using kernel 4.14.6 if this helps as this was the one which was on the link from the Hyperion support forum.

Ubuntu Mate 16.04 LTS Net Installer USB .img (All files for installation are on the .img)
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/03bk ... r.img?dl=0

Tried Debian 8 net installer, that installed to a clean hard drive, but once i tried to boot from hard disk it loads up and then comes to a white screen with a sad face in a cloud and notifies me there is a problem. This has happened on a few occasions.

another attempt Tried Debian 9/Sid 32 bit installing from a USB drive as an iso image. That too installed to a clean hard drive but when it came to actually boot from the hard drive it starts all the first bits where it does system checks and there is a long list of OK's. It then hangs in the same spot with the command prompt and wont boot into desktop

Tried Debian 9/Sid 64 bit and that wouldn't even let me get to the partition stage as there was some error message about it missing some file.

the reason for me wanting to try out Debian is due to a few issues I am having with updating Ubuntu-Mate 16.04 LTS which i had installed on my spare hard drive. I have tried updating this to 16.10 (Yakety Yak) using the instructions on the forum but once i do the update it will only load into a blank screen. I can however access the terminal but not being too familiar with Linux I am unsure of the command to do this (i know in Amiga i'd just do loadwb )

ideally my main reason for the update is that I would like an updated version of Firefox to work with. I notice Xeno74 has issued a PowerPC remix 2017 17.10 and has screenshots of him using it, but whilst i can download the image, is there a specific installer for this or how can this be updated to this version from 16.04??

I am aware Linux does require some tinkering around, but i am a little frustrated today that nothing seems to be working

I also can't get the 2nd graphics card working either, but that is another problem for another day.....

as i write this i am reinstalling 16.04 back on to my spare hard drive, but any help in updating this to the PowerPC remix 2017 Christian Zigotzky has issued would be greatly appreciated I would like to make more use of Linux than i currently do on this machine!

Last edited by outrun1978 on 11-Feb-2018 at 05:47 PM.
Last edited by outrun1978 on 11-Feb-2018 at 05:32 PM.

_________________
Amigaone X5000/20 4GB Radeon RX 550 Polaris 12 AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition Update 1
Amiga 1200 Workbench 3.1.4
Amiga CD32

@Hypex

I'm a long time Debian user, but I never heard the phrase "Debian Jessie's Girl" - what's up with that?

Can't believe I'm the only one asking, did I miss something important?

@outrun1978

Are you installing the desktop options ?
LXDE,MATE,XFCE .
At least one has to be selected as the default Gnome Desktop does not work under .

Have you set the right boot device parameters to boot to the new installation ?
eg
setenv bootargs "root=/dev/sdb1 rootdelay=1 mem=3500M"

While waiting for your reply I did a fresh Debian 9/SID installation onto a partition on my Linux drive (I have 6 versions of Linux installed) plus a second fresh Debian 9/SID.
Failed with the bootloader trying to load Grub but was able to continue after to complete the installation.
It boots ok.

You may also try create a partition table on the second hard drive from your working Ubuntu installation.

The newer Firefox is buggy on the X5000. The Ubuntu 16.04 version 47 is the most stable version currently

_________________
Sam460ex : Radeon Rx550 Single slot Video Card : SIL3112 SATA card

@cgutjahr

Song by Rick Springfield
Called "Jessie's Girl"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYkbTyHXwbs

_________________
Sam460ex : Radeon Rx550 Single slot Video Card : SIL3112 SATA card

Good stuff! I've just installed it on my microA1 and it's running the Linux PPC version of Hollywood 7.1 just fine. Thumbs up to all involved!

@Spectre660


The boot parameters are ok, as I followed your instructions to amend this in the bootargs after installation. Mine is sdc1 as I have two other SSD drives reserved for Amiga OS


Quote:

Are you installing the desktop options ? LXDE,MATE,XFCE . At least one has to be selected as the default Gnome Desktop does not work under .

aaah this maybe the cause then Thank you for the tip! I was trying this under the default and Gnome options so will attempt this at some point over the next day or so!! Hopefully this would work!

ill report back to the Hyperion support forums if i get any more issues

_________________
Amigaone X5000/20 4GB Radeon RX 550 Polaris 12 AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition Update 1
Amiga 1200 Workbench 3.1.4
Amiga CD32

@Hypex

Quote:

But please remember, that Gnome and its log in manager are now incompatible, so you need a desktop that doesn't depend on it.

Is this due to a systemd dependency, or something else?

_________________
"Unix is supposed to fix that." -- Jay Miner