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Bug 512000

Summary: Install-powerpc-minimal-20131229.iso does not Boot in IBM pSeries POWER4 (Regatta) and POWER5+ Systems
Product: Gentoo Release Media Reporter: Urtzi Larrieta <kujaku>
Component: InstallCDAssignee: Gentoo Release Team <releng>
Status: RESOLVED TEST-REQUEST    
Severity: normal CC: brendan, klondike, ppc64, ppc
Priority: Normal    
Version: unspecified   
Hardware: PPC64   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Package list:
Runtime testing required: ---

Description Urtzi Larrieta 2014-06-01 00:26:31 UTC 
I'm trying to install Gentoo PPC64 inside several IBM pSeries machines, but none of them are able to boot from the "install-powerpc-minimal-20131229.iso". The machines I have tested are:
- IBM pSeries 630 (a.k.a 7028-6C4, with POWER4 CPU)
- IBM pSeries 690 (a.k.a 7040-681 with 32 POWER4+ CPUs, codename Regatta)
- IBM pSeries p5 520 (a.k.a 9111-520 with 2 POWER5+ CPUs)

The fact is that all of them can boot from AIX installation CD and DVD. suprisingly, the machines can boot form an old 2008 Gentoo installcd, "install-powerpc-minimal-2008.0.iso". Machines have extensively tested for hardware problems, but everything of them was OK. 

Also, when I try to boot from that old CD, and try to install stage3-ppc64-userland64 system, the Kernel (once compiled) panics at boot if the Kernel is more than 1024K big, and if the Kernel is below that, the system does not boot because does not recognize the disk partitions (althoug SCSI drivers are included correctly). Besides, with userland32 everything seems to be working.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Burn the "install-powerpc-minimal-20131229.iso" into a CD and test that the CD is browseable, so the data is correct.
2. Boot the CD using pSeries OpenFirmware menus (Boot options -> Select Boot Device -> List All Devices -> Select IBM SCSI DVD-ROM -> Perform a Normal Mode Boot -> Nothing happens.
3. Reappears "Perform a Normal Mode boot" menu.
Actual Results:  
Ther's no output in openfirmware, nor serial attached terminal nor HMC. It resets at the Openfirmware prompt again.

Expected Results:  
yaboot prompt with the "Boot:" text (an the you could select with <Tab> what is the kernel profile to launch.

All the machines has passed diagnostic tests. All of the machines were configured with minimal configuration (e.g. disconnecting fiber-channel cards and not used SCSI cards), and using as stand-alone devices without HMC configuration nor LPAR configuration. All of them can boot AIX installation CDROM and install correctly. The list of the machines tested are:
- IBM pSeries 630 (a.k.a 7028-6C4, with 1 POWER4 CPU and 4 GB RAM)
- IBM pSeries 690 (a.k.a 7040-681 with 32 POWER4+ CPUs, and 64 GB RAM, codename Regatta)
- IBM pSeries p5 520 (a.k.a 9111-520 with 2 POWER5+ CPUs and 4 GB RAM)

pSeries 630 and pSeries p5 520 have VGA card and keyboard-mouse, so are VGA console capable. pSeries 690 has only the RS-232 serial VT100 console at 9600 speed.
Comment 1 Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto (RETIRED) Gentoo Infrastructure gentoo-dev 2014-06-03 02:19:08 UTC 
@ppc / @ppc64:

we need anyone on your team to help with these sort of bugs. There's nothing I can do as I don't have ppc* hardware.