FC4 --> FC5 need yaboot, OF help

[Mike Hammill]

Hello all,

After upgrading FC4 to FC5, I have not been able to successfully  
reboot yet.  The problem is a messed up yaboot.conf, I think.  I  
could use some help and or advice on that.  Specifically, can I  
specify at yaboot's "boot:" prompt (or perhaps it's OpenFirmware's) 

an "init=" ?  And if so, how?

Background:

I've been running FC4 for quite a while on a Mac G3 (Blue and  
White).  Really nice.  I decided to take the plunge and do the  
upgrade to FC5.  Since this old Mac has a DVD, I used the FC5 DVD.   
The upgrade appeared to go fine, but when I reboot, I get:

Welcome
Welcome to yaboot version 1.3.13 (Red Hat 1.3.13-0.18)
boot:
Please wait, loading kernel...
:3,/vmlinux: Unable to open file, Invalid device
boot:

Using an old Gentoo 2004.3 CD I investigated further and found the  
old FC4 kernels were removed from /dev/hda3 (my /boot) just as they  
probably should have been, since it was getting full anyway.  The  
files in there now include vmlinuz-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5 and a  
corresponding initrd file.  So, I rebooted, ended up at the same  
boot: prompt shown above and tried a number of things, firstly:

boot: hd:3,/vmlinuz-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5

This enters me into the kernel, shows it recognizes the HD with stuff  
like:
hda: [mac] hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4
but then hits:
EXT2-fs warning (device hda3): ext2_fill_super: mounting ext3  
filesystem as ext2
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 flesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 196k init
Warning: unable to open an initial console.
Kernel panic - not syncing: No init found.  Try passing init= option  
to kernel.
Call Trace:
...
<0> Rebooting after xxx seconds...

Since my entire FC4 installation--outside of /boot--was under LVM  
(and possibly reiserfs, don't recall), my first reaction is that the  
above Kernel needs an initrd file to help it get the LVM/reiserfs  
stuff right.  So, I tried:

boot: hd:3,/vmlinuz-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5 init="/ 
initrd-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5.img"
boot: hd:3,/vmlinuz-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5 init=/initrd-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5.img
boot: hd:3,/vmlinuz-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5 init=initrd-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5.img
boot: hd:3,/initrd-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5.img

None of these worked.  I got messages like "Failed to execute  
initrd-..... Attempting defaults...".

As you can see, I'm struggling with things I don't totally understand  
here (probably why I am not succeeding!)  First off, I'm not sure  
exactly what initrd's really do.  Second, I'm not sure not having one  
is really the problem; it could be that odd message about the  
console.  Finally, even if I'm barking up the right tree, I don't  
know how to make OpenFirmware/yaboot do the right thing.

Help or advice appreciated.

PS  I don't have the yaboot.conf installed by the FC5 DVD in front of  
me, but as I remember is didn't include much more than a boot=/dev/ 
hda2 and partition=3 in it.

/Mike

[Paul Nasrat]

On Tue, 2006-05-16 at 00:49 +0200, Mike Hammill wrote:
>  Hello all,
>  
>  After upgrading FC4 to FC5, I have not been able to successfully  
>  reboot yet.  The problem is a messed up yaboot.conf, I think.  I  
>  could use some help and or advice on that.  Specifically, can I  
>  specify at yaboot's "boot:" prompt (or perhaps it's OpenFirmware's)
>  
>  an "init=" ?  And if so, how? 
It's sounds like an ofpath bug (for real this time...).  What exact
hardware do you have.

>  As you can see, I'm struggling with things I don't totally
> understand  
>  here (probably why I am not succeeding!)  First off, I'm not sure  
>  exactly what initrd's really do.  Second, I'm not sure not having one  
>  is really the problem; it could be that odd message about the  
>  console.  Finally, even if I'm barking up the right tree, I don't  
>  know how to make OpenFirmware/yaboot do the right thing. 
A few notes, atm yaboot can not add initrd from the boot line (I really
need to fix this

>  Help or advice appreciated.
>  
>  PS  I don't have the yaboot.conf installed by the FC5 DVD in front of  
>  me, but as I remember is didn't include much more than a boot=/dev/ 
>  hda2 and partition=3 in it. 
Can you boot off the DVD with "linux rescue" into rescue mode.  We
should be able to fix up from there.  If you can boot into rescue mode,
can you:

chroot /mnt/sysimage
grab yaboot.conf, and run ofpath --debug /dev/hda2

Also wget http://people.redhat.com/pnasrat/ofpath and try with that
version.

Paul

[Mike Hammill]

Dear Paul et al,

Thanks a lot for the tips.  I didn't realize there was a "linux rescue"
and now I'm feeling hopeful.  I made a first pass solution, but it
didn't work.  I think it's maybe not too far off, but I could use some
advice on how to specify my LVM volume properly and how to install the
bootloader.  The details and specific questions follow:

On Tue, 2006-05-16 at 10:53 -0400, Paul Nasrat wrote:
>  It's sounds like an ofpath bug (for real this time...).  What
> exact
>  hardware do you have. 
Thanks to the "linux rescue" you mentioned, I pulled together the info.
It's (temporarily) at:
http://www.pdc.kth.se/~mike/Lamby/machine_info  (CPU, memory, PCI)
http://www.pdc.kth.se/~mike/Lamby/lvm_info (my FC4 LVM volumes)
(lamby is the machine's name).  BTW, there is no MacOS on the machine,
so no worries about trashing other volumes.

>  Can you boot off the DVD with "linux rescue" into rescue
> mode.  We
>  should be able to fix up from there.  If you can boot into rescue mode,
>  can you:
>  
>  chroot /mnt/sysimage
>  grab yaboot.conf, and run ofpath --debug /dev/hda2
>  
>  Also wget http://people.redhat.com/pnasrat/ofpath and try with that
>  version. 
Yes, all of this worked fine.  The output from ofpath is at:
http://www.pdc.kth.se/~mike/Lamby/bootload_info
It turns out running ofpath -V from within chroot gave the same answer
as running ./ofpath -V on the pnasrat version, namely, 1.0.7.  I was
running an up-to-date FC4, so perhaps that is why.

Also included in the bootload_info file above is:
* my previous /etc/fstab which worked in FC4
* the yaboot.conf FC5 created (not-working)
* my first try at a new yaboot.conf (not working)
* resulting message when trying to install my yaboot.conf

Well, I gave it the college try and put my yaboot.conf in /etc/yaboot.conf, then,
following the tips from the Gentoo folks, 
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-ppc.xml?part=1&chap=10
I tried to install it outside of the chroot environment.  Unfortunately, this didn't
work.  I got:
yabootconfig: /dev/VolGroup: No such file or directory
I just had the scary thought that I wiped my old yaboot.conf that worked
under FC4, but I think I kept it.  I'll have to check later.  In any
event, I hope someone's got more of a clue than me.

Best regards,
/Mike