Sam460LE - linux Debian / Ubuntu instalation questions

Please, do anybody have working Debian 8 / Ubuntu 16.04 installation media for Sam460LE?

Spectre660's Linux downloads for the Sam440/460 netinstall.iso are with obsolete default repository mirror (ftp.debianorg).

I manually set actual repository: to archive.debian.org and /debian/
( where today old ppc debian distros are located )
But i receive warning:and installation not continues...

And if I check installation Sam460ex_Debian_Jessie-3.iso, there is this Parthenope bootloader + menu.lst:
Unfortunatelly, in bootmenu is visible only first option: Netinstall. Second option:via Downloaded install DVD are not there.


Also Ubuntu Mate 16.04.1 Live DVD or USB from hyperion forum has unfunctional links for download.

It will be great, if somebody has working installation media or image.
Also any help or advices about modyfiyng installation .iso, especially menu.lst will be great - I will try to correct install .iso.

Thanks!

@sailor
Quote:

Do not use archive.debian.org - it is a package archive, it does not contain ‘debian-installer’ information
Use snapshot.debian.org.
This should work for you to avoid problems with gpg
‘Debian archive mirror hostname:’ snapshot.debian.org
‘Debian archive mirror directory: /archive/debian/20150501T042823Z/

Have fun

EDIT:

I checked on the site you provided the iso of debian jessie - >http://www.xenosoft.de/Sam460ex_Debian_Jessie-3.iso
The netinstall installation works. It should work for many, many years to come ...snapshot.debian.org is maintained from various funding sources and debian itself is the basis for various other distributions.

I will leave a message if anyone wants to do something with QEMU emulation of sam460ex (debagging, playing around, etc. ...).
The easiest way is to rewrite the hexeditor bootloader command line to spit out the linux console on the system console by changing the entries only to ‘console=ttyS0’.

I attach a picture

@smarkusg
thank you very much for help. Intallation works! I installed linux to whole disk, guided, to prevent my human errors.
Installation stopped without creating bootloader - but I think it is normal.

But unfortunatelly I cannot boot to installed system.

At first, I installed parthenope and ending with this:






After that I installed slb_v2 and made in /boot ext2 partition:
boot directory, with kernel and a1boot.conf. This result:



Maybe I try installation again. But do you have any idea?

thx!!

P.S. please, and what is canyonlands-3.19.2.dtb? And should be in kernel line?

@sailor

Hi.

Have not done Linux for about 7 year snow so I am rusty .

My later kernels needed to be booted via Uboot
Their size was too large to work with the existing parthenope.
I had a script that would set up the variables .

; This file can be executed from AmigaOS 4.x to get the Uboot variables correct using the excute command.
; If the onboard SATA is active then the hard drive attached is /dev/sda and first hard drive attached to a sii pci SATA card is /dev/sdb with the first USB device being /dev/sdc.
; if the onboard SATA is deactivated or not present as in the case of the Sam460cr, the the first hard drive attached to the sii pci SATA card is /dev/sda with the first USB device being /dev/sdb.
; change devices for the SATA drive and the USB thumb drive to match your configuration in the nvgetvar lines below then execute this script.
;The examples below uses /dev/sda6 which is the 6th partition on the first hard drive drive connected.
;The USB thumb drive partion is normally going to be the second partition of the first attached usb storage device. in this case /dev/sdb2 .

; To boot Linux from a Linux partition on a USB thumb drive from the U-Boot shell use
;run lb2
;To boot Linux from a hard drive partition from the U-boot shell use
;run lb1
;To boot from tftp server (Fastest boot option)
; run lb3
; the following ip addresses need to be set for tftp with the correct addresses for your server and your Sam460
;nvsetvar serverip=192.168.1.14
;nvsetvar ipaddr=192.168.1.13

nvsetvar uimage="uImage-460"
nvsetvar dtb="sam460.dtb"

nvsetvar bootargs="root=/dev/sda6 console=ttyS0,115200 console=tty0"
nvsetvar ub="setenv bootargs 'root=/dev/sdb2 rootdelay=10 console=ttyS0,115200 console=tty0' "
nvsetvar lb1="ext2load usb 0:3 1000000 ${uimage};ext2load usb 0:3 2000000 ${dtb};bootm 1000000 - 2000000"
nvsetvar lb2="run ub ;run lb1"
nvsetvar lb3="tftp 1000000 ${uimage};tftp 2000000 ${dtb};bootm 1000000 - 2000000"

@Spectre660
thank you for script!
It looks, that even in the case of booting from harddisk I should have USB disk with kernel? ( nvsetvar lb1="ext2load usb 0:3 1000000 ${uimage}... )

Can I use ext2load also for HDD partition? like ext2load ide 0:3 ?
I will download your latest kernel and test it with this script.

@sailor

The newest Sam460 uboot supports fat file systems so you can try.
when I did the script it was not an option.

@Spectre660
Just tested in latest uboot.
There is sata subsystem, but it seems not so complete as usb.
I see device 0, but ext2fs sata 0:x not works. Usb does.
So I will prepare USB ext2/boot and try.

Edit: maybe sata in uboot only with internal Sam406ex SATA.

I tried SD card ( connected to USB ).
Partition table: RDB
Bootloader: tested both Hyperbootloader and slb_v2, but it is probably irelevant
Partitions: 1st SFS, 2nd ext2

in uboot:
ext2ls usb 0:2 list partition, kernel+dtb visible
ext2load usb 0:2 1000000 ${uimage} returns error
uimage variable is setted

Are there special conditions how can be USB formated?
Or please, are there Sam460LE U-boot? manual?

@sailor

just format the SD ard on a linux machine with:

mke2fs -t ext2 /dev/usbX

where usbX is your USB SD card, then copy kernel and dtb, no need to add slb_v2, or parthenope, and no RDB partitioning.

@sailor

In my case, USB does not work on QEMU.
I made a bootable CD with kernel and parameters to boot Linux from disk.
The system boots correctly.
You can try this way if others fail.




I used genisoimage to make the CD.
I found the information on this site: http://www.locati.it/mario/sam460/squeeze/

@m3xQuote:

thanks, I will try Fat32 partitioning and no bootlader.
That one tested was my SD card with Hyperbootloader used for MorphOS, with RDB.

@smarkusg, @Spectre660, @m3x

Thank you very much!!
Finally, I booted Debian 8 on Sam460LE

1. Uboot ext2load: USB with RDB not works, standart one yes
2. environment variables size is too large, script runs out of memory:



3. I deleted unusable envars ( lb2, lb3, ub )
Environment size lowers from 1016/1020 to 830/1020 bytes.
After that it boots correctly ( with latest Spectre660´s kernel ):


4. I had to swap graphics card, my fastest powerpc linux HD6870 have no output. HD7750 works fine. But will have no 3D acceleration if I will install desktop later.
In kernel readme are mentioned this supported cards:
Radeon HD5450
Radeon HD6450
Radeon HD6570
Radeon HD6670
Radeon HD7750,HD7770,R7-250E,R7-250X
Radeon R7-265,R9-270,R9-270X
Radeon R9-280,R9-280X

Please, how complex is to add other card support? HD6870 works for me in X1000 with 5.x kernel from xeno. Is enough to put in radeon/BARTS_pfp.bin ?
Or where I obtain complete list of supported cards? Maybe xorg.log after desktop installation? Or the above list is complete?

In any case many thanks to all supporters!
I will continue with further configuration.

@sailor

Glad to see that you are making progress.

There was no working graphics hardware acceleration for any of the graphics cards however .

The graphics card firmware is embedded in the kernel .

The later Sam460ex kernels that I did should have support for the Radeon HD6800 series. Untested however .
Have uploaded the last one to Dropbox at the link below.

Sam460ex-4.9.38 kernel

@Spectre660
Many thanks!
This kernel version ( 4.9.38 ) works with HD6870.

lxde desktop

@sailor

awesome!!!

and thx Spectre660!!!

@sailor

Great.

By the way HDMI audio and some USB audio devices should work with these kernels if you need an option something for audio,

@jabirulo

Glad that these still work .

@sailor
Great that you managed to get everything working

After your post I got a bit interested in Linux on sam460.
The topic is more related to QEMU. I've actually made myself a kernel with some patches and ran some things on virtio (gpu,fb,net,blk-pci...).
I hope that after a few system updates I will be able to run everything in ‘X’




Greetings