[cobalt-users] Raq4 - Kernel 2.4 Upgrade Woes

["Josh Trutwin" <josh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

This could get long so I'm going to try to be as brief as I can, let me
know where I left out important information...

Thru a shrewd business deal, I recently became a proud owner of a Raq4,
specifically a Raq4r with 2 40 GB IDE drives, SCSI and RAID.  For a
variety of reasons I won't get into, I decided to install Debian on it.  I
took my instructions from these sites: 
ftp://ftp-eng.cobalt.com/pub/users/thockin/2.4/ http://www.apoxx.org and
http://list.cobalt.com/pipermail/cobalt-users/2002-June/071213.html.

First thing I did was a full system backup over my network to an existing
linux box.  Next I backed up the BIOS, then used Tim Hockin's 2.3.40 BIOS
update.  All went well.  Next, I pulled the drives out and installed
Debian 3.0 using a spare AMD (K6 500 Mhz) box.  I ran mke2fs on the root
partition (/dev/hda1) after creating the partition and before mounting it
as root.  Installed Debian, compiled a new 2.4.20 kernel with cobalt
patches, ran make vmlinux, gzipped it, moved it to boot and put the drive
back into the Raq4.  Tried to boot, wouldn't pass the "First Stage -
Decompressing Kernel", just cycled.  Tried to boot from ROM, crapped out
when trying to access the hard drive (exact error message:
request_module[block-major-3]: Root fs not mounted).  Seems odd, the ROM
kernel wasn't changed, it should still have IDE drivers...

Ok, so that didn't work, so I tried again, still didn't work, tried yet
again, re-reading all docs, searching google for help, not finding much,
still no luck with Debian.  I even went as far as to copy the old kernel
from the Raq4 backup I did to the HD, nope.  Later, I found instructions
for slackware, and I had a 9.0 CD just laying around so I tried these
instructions:  http://www.traumatized.org/linux/cobalt/index.php  Followed
the instructions and popped the drive in the Raq4, again, no go, same
looping behavior when trying to boot from disk and same error message when
trying to boot from RAM.  This installation didn't even have a kernel
installed, but when booting from ROM, it still doesn't find an IDE drive.

A couple questions I have (other than "What am I doing wrong!?!"  :P )

1.) Does it matter that I'm using an Athlon K6 to build this?  I don't
have a good grasp on the architecture of the Raq4, but I read in one of
the instructions to use a spare PIII.  Will an Athlon work?  (it's i386
right?)  If not, will a PIV work, no PIII sitting around....

2.) I did NOT install a new ROM Kernel from Tim Hockin's ftp site, the
instructions for both Debian and Slackware did not specify this as a
required step, only to flash the BIOS.  Is this correct or should I have
installed one of his 2.4 kernels when flashing the BIOS.  If I should
have, are my only options to install from NFS or Serial?

3.) Does it matter where in the hard drive /dev/hda1 is?  Somewhere I
think I remember reading to use the last cylinders of the hard drive.  I
used the beginning of the hard drive during my partitioning.

4.) Long shot:  Does it matter what jumper settings I have on the disk
drives?  These are 2 40 GB drives, but I had to enable a jumper to set the
size to 32 GB in order for my AMD's BIOS to recognize the drives.

Let me know if any other info is needed, I'd love to get this one solved,
been bothering me now for weeks.

FYI, I have a copy of the output from attempting to boot at
http://trutwins.homeip.net/raq4.txt that might be helpful.

Sorry for all the wind.

Josh Trutwin
http://trutwins.homeip.net