Installing on a 9500 MP installation questions and answers

[nathan r. hruby]

On Sunday, September 22, 2002, at 10:51 PM, Harold Shanafield wrote:
> Also, I'd like to take advantage of the dual
> processors and from what I've gathered, I need to
> ditch bootx and use miboot.  Is it possible to convert
> from bootx to miboot?  Can anyone point me to a howto?

No, you can use BootX for an SMP system.  i am doing it currently

[nathan@athe1 nathan]$ uname -a
Linux xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2.4.19-4asmp #1 SMP Wed Jun 5 00:59:38 EDT 2002 
ppc unknown
[nathan@athe1 nathan]$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
cpu             : 604r
clock           : 200MHz
revision        : 18.3 (pvr 0009 1203)
bogomips        : 398.95

processor       : 1
cpu             : 604r
clock           : 200MHz
revision        : 18.3 (pvr 0009 1203)
bogomips        : 398.95

total bogomips  : 797.90
machine         : Power Macintosh
motherboard     : AAPL,9500 MacRISC
detected as     : 16 (PowerMac 9500/9600)
pmac flags      : 00000000
L2 cache        : 512K unified
memory          : 256MB
pmac-generation : OldWorld
[nathan@athe1 nathan]$

Here's the easy way -
- apt-get install kernel-smp-2.4.19-4a (It will download and install a 
bunch of stuff...)
- Copy the vmlinux-2.4.19-4asmp kernel from /boot to your MacOS's System 
Folder:Linux Kernels folder.*
- Reboot
- Hit tab when BootX appears in order to stop it from auto-booting
- Select the new smp kernel from the drop down
- Append any flags you need in the flag box
- Hit Save Preferences
- Hit the linux button and your machine will boot, and continue to boot 
this kernel until you tell it otherwise

* I formatted my 1GB MacOS partition HFS (not HFS+ aka HFS Extended) so 
i can mount it under linux.  Thus copying my kernel is as easy as cp 
/boot/vmlinux-2.4.19-4asmp "/mnt/macos/System Folder/Linux Kernels"

So far I haven't had any problems with this system.  I encountered 
similar install problems as you, but that's my fault for not reading the 
manual :)  After the first self boot everything has been rock solid.

HTH

-n
--
......
nathan hruby - nhruby@arches.uga.edu
computer services specialist
uga drama
http://www.drama.uga.edu/
......