[archppc] How stable is it ?

Chman · 2006-05-17 08:30:59

I have a MacMini (G4 processor) currently running Debian. I use it as a home server (http, ftp, svn). The thing is... I can't stand Debian anymore. I really love Arch but I don't know if the ppc version is stable enough to be installed on a little server, and I can't find linux ppc equivalents to arch.

So, what do you think ? Should I go for ArchPPC or should I really avoid it ? If so, what distro do you recommand ?

kth5 · 2006-05-17 10:36:47

as the one-man-army behind ArchPPC i can say that the ppc port is pretty stable. stable enough for me. i run several setups including 2 KDE Desktop systems that i use for php/mysql webdevelopment and one rs6k which i use for a server with python and all that stuff.
of course i can't really be 100% sure about all packages because there hasn't been much feedback yet due to the lack of an installer and archppc being pretty much unknown territory.

if you don't mind using a gentoo or even debian bootablecd to install archppc with quickinst, there's a guide on archlinuxppc.org
this guide was written by benoitc (archlinuxfr founder) who installed archppc several times on his g4 powerbooks.

Chman · 2006-05-17 11:56:49

Thanks kth5, you convinced me, I'll try it next week.

kth5 · 2006-05-17 12:20:19

Chman wrote:

Thanks kth5, you convinced me, I'll try it next week.

would be nice if you would drop a line or two commenting about the installation of packages.

Chman · 2006-05-17 12:45:55

I'll do it I just need to find some time to reinstall the whole thing (not until next week).

reverie · 2006-05-21 07:21:47

Uh, a ppc thread, wee...

The ppc port works great for me (I already had yaboot installed so I just used the iso I found), been using it on an old ibook for some months now (without rebooting) and suddenly osx seems like an old slow dog, best part is that I managed to squeeze an extra hour out of my dying battery.

#archlinuxppc is a bit of a lonely joint though ):

Oh, pbbuttonsd was broken for me, and I couldn't find your pkgbuilds anywhere (oh abs, where art thou), so could I ask you (kth5) to merge this one instead? It's also slightly newer...

Anyways, just wanted to say hi and thanks for the great work, it's much appreciated, I'll throw up a repo of my own stuff (slim/e17/oddities) some sunny day, but I'm very, very lazy

kth5 · 2006-05-22 17:30:58

reverie wrote:

#archlinuxppc is a bit of a lonely joint though ):

it's #archlinux-ppc but anyway...
that is mostly because the community is not quite there plus the people that run archppc are mostly on the run. so am i, leaving the city right now. let's see where life leeds me to...

reverie wrote:

Oh, pbbuttonsd was broken for me, and I couldn't find your pkgbuilds anywhere (oh abs, where art thou), so could I ask you (kth5) to merge this one instead? It's also slightly newer...

i will have a look at it somewhere in the next couple of days... but as for any specific date coming for me: it may well be that tomorror will be another tomorrow.

reverie wrote:

Anyways, just wanted to say hi and thanks for the great work, it's much appreciated, I'll throw up a repo of my own stuff (slim/e17/oddities) some sunny day, but I'm very, very lazy

please do, and msg me so that i can post it somewhere on the site.

Chman · 2006-05-23 17:01:39

Ok, here's my installation report

I used Installation on newworld machines document. Evrything went great before this part :

4) Create a chrooted archlinuxppc

[...]

- Mount chroot
mount -t proc none /mnt/proc
mount -t sysfs none /mnt/sys
mount /mnt /bin/bash
source /etc/profile
udevstart

The line mount /mnt /bin/bash should be chroot /mnt /bin/bach. Then udevstart doesn't exists anymore, it's /etc/start_udev

The problem is : I can't start udev unless the kernel is installed. So I jumped to the next step :

5) Edit configuration files
file /etc/fstab; /etc/rc.conf, /etc/yaboot.conf, /etc/hosts

You should add file /etc/resolv.conf else pacman runs in trouble when trying to download packages (can't resolve host).

I stopped to this step because I'm lost :

6) Install kernel & openssh

pacman -Sy kernel26-pmac openssh

Pacman works, except that it can't generate initrd image :

[root@arch-ppc /]# mkinitrd auto
Checking Input...
    Making image for standard Arch kernel (2.6.16-ARCH)...
Setting up Parameters...
    /lib/modules/2.6.16-ARCH found
ERROR: All of your loopback devices are in use!

If you any idea of what I could do to fix it, I would be pleased to try it.

Thanks in advance !

kth5 · 2006-05-23 21:25:27

it's as easy as:

insmod loop

if that works that is, the iso is a little outdated.

it should be no problem to boot without an initrd either as standard powermac ide and scsi cannot be built as module. you should be able to boot even then.

Chman · 2006-05-23 22:39:40

Ok, so I won't use an initrd image.

There still is a problem : I can't start udev.

[root@arch-ppc /]# /etc/start_udev
mounting... ramfs at /dev
Creating initial udev device nodes:
Kernel does not support uevents, you need a kernel >= 2.6.15!

But :

[root@arch-ppc /]# pacman -Qs kernel26
local/kernel26-pmac 2.6.16.17-1
     The Linux Kernel and modules

And looks like I need to start udev because mkofboot and ybin complain about missing /dev/ entries... Or maybe I don't have to worry about these ?

reverie · 2006-05-24 05:40:45

Chman wrote:

And looks like I need to start udev because mkofboot and ybin complain about missing /dev/ entries... Or maybe I don't have to worry about these ?

Think it will be hard to boot without a bootloader (yaboot), in your chroot, try to manually create the devices you need, e.g.:

cd /dev
/sbin/MAKEDEV hda
ls hda*
mkofboot
ybin -v

If MAKEDEV doesn't work there's mknod, like so:
cd /dev
mknod hda b 3 0
mknod hda1 b 3 1
mknod hda2 b 3 2
etc

Problem is block (/dev) files have been deprecated in favor of an udev daemon, which preferably requires linux 2.6.16+ (for uevents), so, uh, makes the iso not very usable at the moment...

Anyways, hope that helps...

reverie · 2006-05-24 05:49:50

kth5 wrote:

reverie wrote:
#archlinuxppc is a bit of a lonely joint though ):
it's #archlinux-ppc but anyway...

Uh, that might explain it Maybe update the homepage to reflect those changes? (left box, bottom)...

kth5 wrote:

that is mostly because the community is not quite there plus the people that run archppc are mostly on the run. so am i, leaving the city right now. let's see where life leeds me to...

Why, aren't you the daring little adventurer, careful mon, or you'll get eaten by a grue!

kth5 wrote:

please do, and msg me so that i can post it somewhere on the site.

Will do when I do, but I am very, very lazy (which means I have to write some scripts first

Chman · 2006-05-24 08:25:44

Thanks reverie & kth5 for your time, it worked. I can now boot in archlinux and have a nice kernel panic :

EXT2-fs: hda5: couldn't mount because of unsupported optional features (4).
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(3,5)
 <0>Rebooting in 180 seconds...

Did I forget something ? I didn't sleep a lot those last days...

reverie · 2006-05-24 11:28:32

Chman wrote:

EXT2-fs: hda5: couldn't mount because of unsupported optional features (4).
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(3,5)
 <0>Rebooting in 180 seconds...

Hmm, maybe ext3 is not compiled in and ext2 does not know how to mount a needs-recovery ext3 filesystem, and it won't help putting ext2 in fstab because it needs to mount the filesystem first in order to read fstab, cool eh? no? k.

Boot from cd and try some of the following:

1) run fsck.ext3 /dev/hda_something (make sure it isn't mounted)
2) probably get that initrd thingie up and running where the ext3 module is... uh, mount, chroot, echo "initrd=/boot/initrd26.img" >> /etc/yaboot.conf && ybin -v

Hmm... oh yes, and cross your fingers

kth5 · 2006-05-24 13:30:42

looks like the rootfs is not even mounted before init is called. that of course makes it impossible to do anything except rebooting.

it may be worth a shot to try mkinitcpio to use ramfs. it doesn't require loop as far as i can tell.

chroot /mnt
pacman -Sy mkinitcpio # installs ramfs stuff from extra
mkinitcpio -k 2.6.16-ARCH -g /boot/initrd26.ramfs
echo "initrd=/boot/initrd26.ramfs" >> /etc/yaboot.conf && ybin -v

initramfs works just like initrd in yaboot.conf.

you should also take a look at your fstab again. quickinst doesn't automaticly create it according to your "partitioning" as it doesn't know a thing about it. maybe you put a invalid mount-option somewhere?

good luck!

user · 2006-05-24 14:03:46

Does ArchPPC works on PS3? i die to know it.

kth5 · 2006-05-24 14:19:16

user wrote:

Does ArchPPC works on PS3? i die to know it.

Cell != powerpc

even though one of the components is very powerpc like, it does not come as a regular powerpc compatible cpu. it is focused on graphics only so the powerpc in there only takes over a controller-like function. the POWER series - which cell would obsolete if it were compatible - will continue its life as general purpose CPU. (source: IBM guy on Linuxtag)

so, no archppc does not run on PS3 and never will.

codemac · 2006-05-24 18:52:14

PS3 will run linux though, and that to me is very exciting. As a gaming machine, it's over priced. For the power you are getting, it's still a cheap price point. They have shown the linux desktop running on PS3 several times. So maybe an ArchPS3 project may be popping up

Chman · 2006-05-24 19:27:41

Thanks a lot for your help/time.

I had some internet problems this afternoon and I didn't see kth5's post. I tried some workarounds but none of them worked, and I had to finish the server for tonight so I temporally re-installed debian.

I'll give a deeper look at archppc in some weeks, I'll probably play with it using qemu this time.

Note: the PS3 would make a nice streaming server

Arch Linux

#1 2006-05-17 08:30:59

[archppc] How stable is it ?

#2 2006-05-17 10:36:47

Re: [archppc] How stable is it ?

#3 2006-05-17 11:56:49

Re: [archppc] How stable is it ?

#4 2006-05-17 12:20:19

Re: [archppc] How stable is it ?

#5 2006-05-17 12:45:55

Re: [archppc] How stable is it ?

#6 2006-05-21 07:21:47

Re: [archppc] How stable is it ?

#7 2006-05-22 17:30:58

Re: [archppc] How stable is it ?

#8 2006-05-23 17:01:39

Re: [archppc] How stable is it ?

#9 2006-05-23 21:25:27

Re: [archppc] How stable is it ?

#10 2006-05-23 22:39:40

Re: [archppc] How stable is it ?

#11 2006-05-24 05:40:45

Re: [archppc] How stable is it ?

#12 2006-05-24 05:49:50

Re: [archppc] How stable is it ?

#13 2006-05-24 08:25:44

Re: [archppc] How stable is it ?

#14 2006-05-24 11:28:32

Re: [archppc] How stable is it ?

#15 2006-05-24 13:30:42

Re: [archppc] How stable is it ?

#16 2006-05-24 14:03:46

Re: [archppc] How stable is it ?

#17 2006-05-24 14:19:16

Re: [archppc] How stable is it ?

#18 2006-05-24 18:52:14

Re: [archppc] How stable is it ?

#19 2006-05-24 19:27:41

Re: [archppc] How stable is it ?

Board footer