Handbook:HPPA/Blocks/Booting

Booting the installation CD

Note
When experiencing problems when booting the Installation CD or any other media, please read the PA-RISC Linux Boot HOWTO.

Boot the HPPA system. During the boot process, a message similar to the following will show up:

CODE HPPA boot message

Searching for Potential Boot Devices.
To terminate search, press and hold the ESCAPE key.

When this message appears, press and hold the Esc key until an option menu appears. This can take a while, be patient. By default, this should enter the BOOT_ADMIN console. If an option menu is displayed, choose Enter Boot Administration mode to enter the BOOT_ADMIN console. This should result in an '>' prompt.

Put the Gentoo installation CD in the CD-ROM. If the SCSI ID of the CD-ROM drive is unknown, then the PA-RISC station will search for it if the search command is invoked.

>search

Searching for Devices with Bootable Media. To terminate search, please press and hold the ESCAPE key.

The PA-RISC station will now display all the available boot media. This is an example result of this command:

CODE Available boot media

Device Selection      Device Path             Device Type and Utilities
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
P0                    scsi.5.0                TOSHIBA CD-ROM XM-3301TA
                                                  IPL
P1                    scsi.2.0                COMPAQ ST32550N
                                                  IPL
P2                    lan.0010a7-06d1b6.3.6   server
                                                  IPL

To boot from a CD-ROM the accompanying Device Path is needed. For instance, to boot from the TOSHIBA CD-ROM in the above example, type the following command:

>boot scsi.5.0 ipl

Trying scsi.5.0

The ipl keyword (Initial Program Loader) tells palo (the PA-RISC boot LOader) to enter interactive mode. This will allow to change, for example, the kernel boot parameters.

When the boot is successful, palo will start in interactive mode:

CODE PALO Interactive Mode

Boot path initialized.
Attempting to load IPL.
  
  
HARD Booted.
palo ipl 1.5 root@hope Sat Apr 23 18:06:47 CEST 2005
  
Boot image contains:
    0/vmlinux32 6241293 bytes @ 0x3904000
    0/vmlinux64 8352719 bytes @ 0x3ef8000
    0/ramdisk 1007589 bytes @ 0x105800
  
Information: No console specified on kernel command line. This is normal.
PALO will choose the console currently used by firmware (serial). Current command line:
0/vmlinux initrd=initrd TERM=linux root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc cdroot looptype=squashfs loop=/livecd.squashfs hda=scsi console=ttyS0
 0: 0/vmlinux
 1: initrd=initrd
 2: TERM=linux
 3: root=/dev/ram0
 4: init=/linuxrc
 5: cdroot
 6: looptype=squashfs
 7: loop=/livecd.squashfs
 8: hda=scsi
 9: console=ttyS0
  
<#>    edit the numbered field
'b'    boot with this command line
'r'    restore command line
'l'    list dir

These parameters are suitable for most situations.

If extra features are needed, add the appropriate keyword(s) to the end of the command line. To add a keyword, edit the last field, add a space and type your keyword. The only implemented keywords as of now are cdcache which tells the installation CD to load itself into RAM, allowing to unmount the CD, and noload=module1[,module2[,...]] which allows to explicitly disable loading of particular modules.

(or 'b' to boot with this command line)?9

console=ttyS0 hdb=scsi

Now that the kernel boot parameters are set, boot it!

(or 'b' to boot with this command line)?b

This should result in a root ("#") prompt on the current console. It is possible to switch to other consoles by pressing Alt+F2, Alt+F3, and Alt+F4. Get back to the first one, press Alt+F1.