[CLUE-Tech] Alpha/aboot/gentoo question.

[Adam Bultman]

Hello everyone. Question.

I'm installing gentoo 1.4_rc1 alpha on my alpha.  

I'm at the point where the system is just about complete, and I have to 
put on the bootloader.  I've installed aboot, which is what they use to 
boot (I guess?  Debian used aboot when I had it on there).  I currently am 
booting from an SRM console.  `boot dka400' boots my CDROM, for example.

Anyway, I'm having a bit of a problem getting the system to boot. /dev/sda 
has a BSD disklabel with 3 partitions.   

a: starts at cyl 3, ends at 10 (~ 50 MB)
b: starts at cyl 11, ends at 41 (~ 200 MB)
c: starts at cyl 42, ends at 256 (rest of drive).

/dev/sda1 = /boot
/dev/sda2 = swap
/dev/sda3 /
(there is /dev/sdb and /dev/sdc, but they aren't important here)

This is about how the instructions on alphalinux.org says. I followed 
another web page saying that the few 2 cylinders or so to aboot to put 
information  (i.e. bootloader).

So, I have the correct setup, as far as I can tell, and I have a built 
kernel (I think I could also use the CDROM's kernel), but I can't seem to 
get the system to boot it.  I don't know if I have aboot installed 
incorrectly, or what, but it complains that vmlinux isn't valid. I can't 
seem to make a boot floppy, either, following their directions. 

My SRM console *doesn't* support booting with the -file <kernel> option, 
so I think I might be screwed, but I figured I'd write in, since I can't 
seem to find any help elsewhere on the net (sans google groups, which I 
haven't search yet).  I have no clue if any of you have used linux on an 
alpha, let alone tried to set up the bootloader yourselves; Debian and 
freebsd did it for me (lousy automagic), but I have a need to be thwarted, 
so I'm trying gentoo.  

(for you gentoo people, a stage 1 install on a 233 MHz alpha takes 
*forever*.  It took about 50 hours to compile everything so I have a stage 
3 system).