headers
Tim Rightnour | 1 May 2008 03:11
Gravatar

multi-architecture powerpc CD?


I was thinking we should attempt to create a multi-architecture powerpc CD.
There are a few things to figure out first:

1) What ports are CD-bootable at present?  ofppc, macppc, prep.  Any others?

2) What is the method of making the cd bootable on macppc?  For prep we write a
fdisk partition to the head of the iso image.  Is that incompatible with macppc?

3) I need to test still to see if prep/ofppc can coexist peacefully on the cd.
I think they can, but am not 100% sure.

4) Is it possible to put symlinks on a cd?  If so, we could share some of the
common sets between the arches to save space.  If not, is there another trick
we could use?

---
Tim Rightnour <root <at> garbled.net>
NetBSD: Free multi-architecture OS http://www.netbsd.org/
Genecys: Open Source 3D MMORPG: http://www.genecys.org/
Permalink | Reply | 8 comments |
headers
Michael Lorenz | 1 May 2008 06:10
Picon

Re: multi-architecture powerpc CD?


Hello,

On Apr 30, 2008, at 21:11, Tim Rightnour wrote:

> I was thinking we should attempt to create a multi-architecture  
> powerpc CD.
> There are a few things to figure out first:
>
> 1) What ports are CD-bootable at present?  ofppc, macppc, prep.   
> Any others?
>
> 2) What is the method of making the cd bootable on macppc?  For  
> prep we write a
> fdisk partition to the head of the iso image.  Is that incompatible  
> with macppc?

Don't think so - IIRC all Apple OF versions can read ofwboot.xcf from  
an ISO 9660 filesystem.
I wouldn't be surprised if at least old world OF also understands  
prep bootable CDs ( or whatever /packages/aix-boot is for )

> 4) Is it possible to put symlinks on a cd?  If so, we could share  
> some of the
> common sets between the arches to save space.  If not, is there  
> another trick
> we could use?

Wasn't there an extension to iso9660 that implements unix-like  
filesystem semantics, including symlinks? OF probably doesn't support
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 4 comments |
headers
Tim Rightnour | 1 May 2008 08:03
Gravatar

Re: multi-architecture powerpc CD?


On 01-May-2008 Michael Lorenz wrote:
>> 2) What is the method of making the cd bootable on macppc?  For  
>> prep we write a
>> fdisk partition to the head of the iso image.  Is that incompatible  
>> with macppc?
> 
> Don't think so - IIRC all Apple OF versions can read ofwboot.xcf from  
> an ISO 9660 filesystem.
> I wouldn't be surprised if at least old world OF also understands  
> prep bootable CDs ( or whatever /packages/aix-boot is for )

Well, ofppc uses a /bootinfo.txt file, which contains pointers to the ofwboot
file.  Here is a quick ls -lR:

./:
drwxr-xr-x  2 root  wheel      512 Apr 30 22:53 nbsd
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  3349845 Apr 30 22:53 netbsd
drwxr-xr-x  4 root  wheel      512 Apr 30 18:38 ofppc
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel    55604 Apr 30 18:25 ofwboot.ofppc
drwxr-xr-x  2 root  wheel      512 Apr 30 22:53 ppc

./nbsd:
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  55604 Apr 30 18:25 ofwboot

./ppc:
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  12777 Apr 30 22:53 bootinfo.txt

Prep has an el-torrito image, and a fdisk/mbr on the head of the ISO that
points to it.
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 2 comments |
headers
Jochen Kunz | 1 May 2008 09:40
Picon

Re: multi-architecture powerpc CD?

On Thu, 1 May 2008 00:10:49 -0400
Michael Lorenz <macallan <at> netbsd.org> wrote:

> Wasn't there an extension to iso9660 that implements unix-like  
> filesystem semantics, including symlinks? OF probably doesn't
> support it though.
Rock Ridge extensions, see e.g. mkisofs(8). Pretty much any *ix
supports it. But I doubt OFW pays attention to it.
--

-- 

tsch__,
       Jochen

Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Harold Gutch | 1 May 2008 09:28
Picon

Re: multi-architecture powerpc CD?

On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 06:11:24PM -0700, Tim Rightnour wrote:
> 4) Is it possible to put symlinks on a cd?  If so, we could share some of the
> common sets between the arches to save space.  If not, is there another trick
> we could use?

I don't know if mkisofs supports this in any way, but you can of
course create some kind of hardlinks, sectors on the filesystem that
are referenced by multiple directory entries.  If nothing else, it
should be very easy write a small "mklink" tool that changes the
sector and size of a file on a cd9660 file system.  Then first create
the file system with dummy files (e.g. 1 byte files), and after that
run the tool on that file system.

bye,
  Harold
Permalink | Reply | 2 comments |
headers
Tim Rightnour | 1 May 2008 10:38
Gravatar

Re: multi-architecture powerpc CD?


On 01-May-2008 Harold Gutch wrote:
>> 4) Is it possible to put symlinks on a cd?  If so, we could share some of
>> the
>> common sets between the arches to save space.  If not, is there another
>> trick
>> we could use?

I should note, that the ability to read these symlinks would only be needed
once we were running NetBSD.  The firmware doesn't need to access them in any
way.  Just not explode on thier existence.  (I really don't know much about the
iso9660 formats)

---
Tim Rightnour <root <at> garbled.net>
NetBSD: Free multi-architecture OS http://www.netbsd.org/
Genecys: Open Source 3D MMORPG: http://www.genecys.org/
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Michael Lorenz | 1 May 2008 19:58
Picon

Re: multi-architecture powerpc CD?


Hello,

On May 1, 2008, at 02:03, Tim Rightnour wrote:
>
> On 01-May-2008 Michael Lorenz wrote:
>>> 2) What is the method of making the cd bootable on macppc?  For
>>> prep we write a
>>> fdisk partition to the head of the iso image.  Is that incompatible
>>> with macppc?
>>
>> Don't think so - IIRC all Apple OF versions can read ofwboot.xcf from
>> an ISO 9660 filesystem.
>> I wouldn't be surprised if at least old world OF also understands
>> prep bootable CDs ( or whatever /packages/aix-boot is for )
>
> Well, ofppc uses a /bootinfo.txt file, which contains pointers to  
> the ofwboot
> file.  Here is a quick ls -lR:
>
> ./:
> drwxr-xr-x  2 root  wheel      512 Apr 30 22:53 nbsd
> -rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  3349845 Apr 30 22:53 netbsd
> drwxr-xr-x  4 root  wheel      512 Apr 30 18:38 ofppc
> -r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel    55604 Apr 30 18:25 ofwboot.ofppc
> drwxr-xr-x  2 root  wheel      512 Apr 30 22:53 ppc
>
> ./nbsd:
> -r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  55604 Apr 30 18:25 ofwboot
>
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Tim Rightnour | 1 May 2008 21:27
Gravatar

Re: multi-architecture powerpc CD?


On 01-May-2008 Tim Rightnour wrote:
> Prep has an el-torrito image, and a fdisk/mbr on the head of the ISO that
> points to it.

This ended up being problematic. The IBM OFW understands a prep partition, and
ignores the CD because of it. Looking at an AIX CD, what they seem to do
instead is:

append the prep image at the end of the iso.
make partition 0 type 150 and point it at the cd9660 section of the cd.
make partition 1 type prep(65) and point it at the prep image at the end of the
cd.  It appears that the prep image lies outside the range of the cd9660
section.

I assume this needs to happen to get the firmware to look at the 9660 region
when a prep partition is also present. I'm not immediately sure how to do this.

Partition table:
0: unknown (sysid 150)
    start 0, size 1285932 (628 MB, Cyls 0-80/11/39), Active
1: Linux/MINIX (sharing disk with DRDOS) or Personal RISC boot (sysid 65)
    start 1296852, size 11424 (6 MB, Cyls 80/184/61-81/111/18), Active

---
Tim Rightnour <root <at> garbled.net>
NetBSD: Free multi-architecture OS http://www.netbsd.org/
Genecys: Open Source 3D MMORPG: http://www.genecys.org/
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Harold Gutch | 2 May 2008 08:26
Picon

Re: multi-architecture powerpc CD?

On Thu, May 01, 2008 at 09:28:36AM +0200, Harold Gutch wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 06:11:24PM -0700, Tim Rightnour wrote:
> > 4) Is it possible to put symlinks on a cd?  If so, we could share some of the
> > common sets between the arches to save space.  If not, is there another trick
> > we could use?
> 
> I don't know if mkisofs supports this in any way, but you can of
> course create some kind of hardlinks, sectors on the filesystem that
> are referenced by multiple directory entries.  If nothing else, it
> should be very easy write a small "mklink" tool that changes the
> sector and size of a file on a cd9660 file system.  Then first create
> the file system with dummy files (e.g. 1 byte files), and after that
> run the tool on that file system.

I perhaps should have looked at the mkisofs(8) manpage before writing
this mail - it appears that the parameter "-cache-inodes" does exactly
what I described.  This does not depend on the existence or the
availability of Rock Ridge extentions, so it should be slightly more
compatible than symbolic links.

bye,
  Harold
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Tim Rightnour | 11 May 2008 08:32
Gravatar

libcrypto assembler code for ppc?

I noticed that we have i386 asm code for some of the crypto stuff in libcrypto,
but it doesn't look like powerpc has any.  It appears however there might be
asm shipped with openssl for powerpc.

I'm assuming someone has to test this to make sure it works, so, is there some
kind of test suite/atf thing that I can run?  Also, how would I go about
enabling some of the tuned asm for ppc?

---
Tim Rightnour <root <at> garbled.net>
NetBSD: Free multi-architecture OS http://www.netbsd.org/
Genecys: Open Source 3D MMORPG: http://www.genecys.org/
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |

Gmane