Subject: Debian bootable image with versioned glibc

From: Jim Pick <[email-masked]>
Date: 20 Feb 1999 18:49:18 -0800

Debian-ARM for the NetWinder
   ============================

   Bootable Image (with versioned glibc) - February 20, 1999

   Jim Pick <[email-masked]>

I've prepared a bootable image of the Debian base system that can be
installed onto a partition on a NetWinder, so it can be booted
directly into Debian.  The packages use glibc 2.1, compiled to use
versioned symbols.

This image can also be used as a chroot environment - without
affecting the software that HCC/Corel supplies.  The binaries are now
compiled without StrongARM optimizations - so they theoretically
should work on any ARM-based machine that has an ELF Linux kernel
available and uses the ARMv3 or better instruction set.

The image is minimally configured - containing just enough installed
packages to make it easy to download the official ARM packages from Debian
and some additional non-official/local packages from my HTTP/FTP server.

                          *** WARNING ***

DO NOT use this image as your only means of booting your NetWinder.
It is strongly suggested that you keep the HCC/Corel Red Hat image on
a separate partition - or after installing the Debian successfully to
one partition, install it to another partition.  You want to preserve
your options for booting.  You could also set up a network boot
environment via DHCP in case you get into trouble.  See Stany's
NetWinder Rescue HOWTO on netwinder.org.

The Debian port is still a work-in-progress, watch for falling objects.

In particular - realize that these are new packages that use a glibc 2.1
that was built with versioned symbols enabled.  The binaries and libraries
supplied with this image are completely binary incompatible with the
older Debian ARM packages, and with the current HCC/Corel RPMs (which
still use the unversioned glibc).  It should be binary compatible with
the future ARM distribution from Red Hat, and with the "Titan" RPM
distribution.

Known Bugs:

  * The "therm" program hasn't been ported yet.  So there isn't a 
    way of controlling the fan.
  * the 'ps' command has weird output
  * the X packages don't work right
  * Many packages are lacking documentation, because I didn't have
    nsgmls or tetex working when I built them.
  * The framebuffer driver seems to have some redrawing problems
    with this particular kernel.  Hitting ^l will redraw the screen
    for you.
  * nsgmls seems to be broken.

  (There's probably plenty more bugs.  All the packages supplied on
   the current image are "unofficial", and will soon be replaced by
   properly built packages that will be uploaded to the main
   Debian distribution)

Here's what you do (as root) in order to install it:

  1) Download the image from:

         ftp://ftp.jimpick.com/pub/debian/arm/image/

     The filename should be something like:  debian-image_990220.tar.gz

     It's approximately a 9MB download.  It is also available as a
     bzip2'd tar archive.

  2) Upgrade your flash to San Mehat's latest NeTTROM.  Get it at his
     developer's page on the restricted access portion of netwinder.org:

         http://www.netwinder.org/devel/notes/sanm.html 

     Read the instructions very carefully (unfortunately, they are buried
     in the web page - there isn't a separate doc).  If you mess up when
     burning your flash, it would be inconvenient.  I recommend printing
     off this page before you try to redo your flash.

     Install the upgrade, and ensure that you can reboot normally.
 
  2) Pick a partition where you want to install it.  Hopefully, you have a
     free partition available.  There isn't currently a good way to
     repartition your system - eventually, it should be possible to boot from
     flash and repartition from there - but you'll have to wait for that.

  3) Go to the base of that partition, and untar the file, ie:

       # tar xzvf debian-image_990220.tar.gz

     This will untar the files directly into the current directory - so
     make sure you are in the directory where you want it!

  4) You'll want to edit etc/fstab to make sure the base partition listed
     is the same as the one you actually installed it onto. 

  5) Reboot the system, and interrupt the booting sequence to get the 
     NettROM prompts.  If you installed the image to /dev/hda4, you would
     set the NettROM up like so (assuming you had defaults for all the
     other variables):

        setenv kernconfig fs
	setenv kerndev /dev/hda4
	setenv kernfile /Image
	setenv rootconfig disk
	setenv rootdev /dev/hda4
	save-all   (or just "boot" if you want to try it out for one time only)

  6) Hopefully it boots, and you will be inside Debian!

  7) You'll want to do several things:

        a) reset the root password
	b) configure your hostname (in /etc/hostname)
	c) set your timezone "tzconfig"
	d) setup your networking (in /etc/init.d/network)

  8) You will want to edit /etc/resolv.conf to point to your nameservers
     and to use your domain name.  Or you can just leave it pointing at
     mine.  

  9) Install additional packages.  You do this using the "dselect" program.

     Dselect has been configured to use the "apt" access method.  It
     will look for package files via http from the collection of unofficial
     packages on ftp.jimpick.com.  When we build some official packages
     using versioning, you will want to edit /etc/apt/sources.list
     so that apt-get and dselect will pull the packages from your
     favourite Debian mirror site.

 10) You should have a functional Debian environment set up now!  You might
     want to go on and add some users (using "adduser"), and do some
     additional configuration.

     You might want to join the debian-arm mailing list, by sending a
     message contain the word "subscribe" in the body to
     [email-masked] .

     Also, feel free to check our website, which is at:

       http://www.debian.org/ports/arm/

If you have any questions, please direct them to the mailing list.  If
you have a correction/clarification for this set of instructions, please
send me a note - <[email-masked]> .

Cheers,

 - Jim

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