hd-media initrd not working on Amiga

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

Hello Carlos!

1. The pata_gayle IDE driver is not available on the hd-media.

I must proceed with the legacy gayle driver.

2. At the "iso-scan" stage in d-i, the kernel is not able to mount

any filesystem yet, not even ext2 partitions. So finding the ISO
image will fail and the installation cannot continue. It looks like
d-i is not able to mount even a ext2 partition until the "Load
installer components from installation media" stage has succeed,
that cannot happen without installation media.

https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/debian-installer/-/blob/master/build/pkg-lists/hd-media/m68k.cfg

Those are:

- fat-modules-${kernel:Version}
- ext4-modules-${kernel:Version}
- pata-modules-${kernel:Version}

https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/debian-installer/-/blob/master/build/pkg-lists/hd-media/i386.cfg
So my question is: how I would be able to install Debian m68k on my real Amiga without CD?

You won't until I have fixed the issues above. I'm currently on a train, but I'm trying to get this
fixed ASAP. Thanks for the report. You see, hd-media hasn't been tested for ages.

Adrian

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

Hello!

By comparing the two of them, wouldn't we need this one as well?
loop-modules-${kernel:Version}
If we are to mount the ISO as installation media and it is loop mounted,
probably that one will be needed as well.

Yes, that needs to go in, too. I will provide you with a test image anyway,
so that you can verify it works as expected.

Post by John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
You won't until I have fixed the issues above.
I'm currently on a train, but I'm trying to get this fixed ASAP.
Thanks for the report. You see, hd-media hasn't been tested for ages.

Thanks to you for the efforts! CD drives are disappearing from most
computer setups, so I think the hd-media image is really relevant today.
A last question very related to the Amiga. I used the busybox provided
with d-i to create and format an additional ext2 partition. Then, I
used wget to download and place the installation ISO image on it.
I think this procedure will be hard for most Amiga users. It would
be better if this could be done from AmigaOS. Is it possible to
provide in the hd-media image support for mounting AFFS partitions
so the ISO can be placed there?

Yes, there is also an affs-modules kernel modules package [1] we can just add.

Adrian

[1] https://packages.debian.org/unstable/affs-modules-5.10.0-8-m68k-di

[Finn Thain]

Post by John Paul Adrian Glaubitz

I think this procedure will be hard for most Amiga users. It would be
better if this could be done from AmigaOS. Is it possible to provide
in the hd-media image support for mounting AFFS partitions so the ISO
can be placed there?

Yes, there is also an affs-modules kernel modules package [1] we can just add.

Please also add modules for common Apple MacOS and Atari TOS filesystems
where that's feasible.

[Johny Five]

Hi Carlos,

Stefan with Carsten showed me this trick during last m68k meeting back in
2018 at Essen.

On the harddrive/cf card simply write the content of the iSO file to some
partition.
You can use swap partition - only it will be rewritten during the fist
actual boot of Linux.

You can do it virtually on anything which understands Amiga partitioning of
that drive.

dd if=debian.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=512 status=progress

During the meeting we actual used Stefan's beautiful Falcon running Debian
:)


Fire up the amiboot

During the setup there will be error as CD-ROM not detected.
Load CD-ROM drivers from removable media - YES
Manually select a CD-ROM module and device - YES
Module needed for accessing the CD-ROM: none
Device file for accessing the CD-ROM: /dev/hda2

It worked like a charm.

Post by Finn Thain

Post by John Paul Adrian Glaubitz

I think this procedure will be hard for most Amiga users. It would be
better if this could be done from AmigaOS. Is it possible to provide
in the hd-media image support for mounting AFFS partitions so the ISO
can be placed there?

Yes, there is also an affs-modules kernel modules package [1] we can just add.

Please also add modules for common Apple MacOS and Atari TOS filesystems
where that's feasible.