New Miniloader (Milo) images and source tree

Ka'plaagh 16-Oct-1995 1056 +0100 (rusling@rdgeng.enet.dec.com)
Mon, 16 Oct 95 11:03:46 MET

All,
another "official" release of the Alpha Linux Miniloader (aka
MILO). I've appended MILO.LATEST from gatekeeper.dec.com down in
pub/Digital/Linux-Alpha/Miniloader/src which has a few notes on what
the changes are. All of the images in the /images subdirectories are
built against this version. I'll have a go with 1.3.34 but Linus' words
on changing device driver initialization make me suspicious that it will
not work straight off. Meanwhile, building against 1.3.31 does work
very nicely. Proto-WNT ARC loading is in there, but you'll need
dbmloadr.exe in /misc to use it. Basically, the code gets loaded at
zero and then relocates to 0x200000. I need to rewrite dbmloadr.exe and
I'm wrestling with WNT to do that (2 falls, 2 submissions or a knockout
decide the winner). It works well on the AxpPCI33 (aka Noname).

There's a new mini.howto in /docs, now called howto.txt. It's
got more in it but it's early days and I've a lot more to add. However,
comments are welcome - particularly if there's information that can
help others with this (such as I tried the so-and-so card with BIOS
emulation and it worked).

I'd also like some feedback on what Milo images are proving useful.
Building all different flavours (and testing them) is a pain. I want
to cut down on how many times I do this. So I propose that I leave stable
versions as is (assuming that they are) and add an experimental image area
which is updated with only a few images as I release new Milo's that relate
to new Kernels.

Dave

------------------

Miniboot Release README
-----------------------

Latest Version (1.3.31 12th October 1995)
-----------------------------------------
[milo-1.3.31-101295.tgz]

The latest version of the miniloader is 1.3.31 based (although
this may or may not build against later versions of the Linux
kernel). Take milo-1.3.31.tgz and build these against
linux-1.3.31 plus axp-diff-1.3.27-pci.gz from David Mosberger-Tang.

I've bowed to the inevitable and the execuateables are now called "milo".

Known Problems
--------------

(1) Some keyboards just plain don't work, don't ask me why.
(2) You'll need David Mosberger-Tang's fixed as in order to assemble the
.S files. It's in his ftp area.

Changes Since Last (Full) Version
---------------------------------

(1) Now builds for the EB66+,
(2) Includes prototype ARC loading changes,
(3) Source code moved around a bit and tidied, executables now called "milo"
(4) IDE support tested,
(5) Optionally builds the PALcode for you,
(6) Noname PALcode includes David Mosberger-Tang's fixes (you don't
have to build the PALcode to get these) which allows IDE to work and
NCR SCSI to work more efficiently,
(7) Prototype ARC loading support is less prototype.

Building the Miniloader
-----------------------

Unpack the miniloader distribution and, if neccessary, unpack and
build the kernel distribution for your Alpha PC. If you can, check that
this linux kernel works ok - the miniloader uses parts of the kernel in
its processing. Stuff like interrupt handling and PCI setup for example.

Now build the miniloader by pointing at the kernel source tree:

> make KSRC=/usr/src/linux-1.3.31

(for example). This should produce whatever is neccessary for your
particular board (or you could try the pre-built images on gatekeeper.dec.com).
Read mini.howto to find out how to load and run the miniloader on your
particular system.

The first thing that gets built is the configuration file, or you could
just use mine. One thing, if you change configuration it's a good idea to
make the Miniloader completely from scratch.

Thank you and good luck.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David A Rusling david.rusling@reo.mts.dec.com

"Imagine being the one without Linux on Alpha"
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