I successfully installed CentOS using the Strongbolt installer. I used the 1.04 beta iso which doesn’t install the BlueQuartz web gui, but it’s easily installable using notes from webhostingtalk.com.

It works well, but I suspect my problem all along has been that the WD1200-JD drives I’m using aren’t compatible. I installed CentOS using the original 20GB drive that came with my Qube. For the first time I can login via the USB-to-Serial cable. I think I’ll try to install Ubuntu or Debian on this drive next. Then maybe I’ll use dd to copy that install, if it works, to the 120GB drive.

I’d just deal with the Red Hat EL-based CentOS, but after using Debian and Ubuntu I’m not interested in going back to an rpm-based distribution. I don’t think yum holds a candle to apt. Additionally, it would be nice to keep a consistent install base across my home and work machines. It makes it much easier to write cross-machine scripts and the like.

For comparison, the serial output is below.

Update: I installed one of the larger disk as the secondary disk into the cube and did ‘dd = if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdd’, which worked. I can now boot from the larger disk. So, clearly it isn’t that the Qube can’t boot from one of these disks, it’s that the install just won’t work on them. Very odd. I’ll try to install Ubuntu 6.10 next in the same manner.

Sun Cobalt - Smaller, Bluer, Better, and Free
Firmware version 2.10.3-ext3

Current date: Feb 04 08:49:35 UTC 2007
ROM build info: Thu Mar 11 08:51:36 MST 2004 .
System serial number: S2250518
System type: 3000 series system, Version 2 board
Silicon serial number: 8e000008a7189d01
Monitor: 153536 bytes
Memory: 512 MB
CPU: 1 processor(s) detected
CPU 0: AuthenticAMD 448MHz (4.5 x 100MHz host bus) [BSP]
Initializing flash: done
Flash Bank 0: AMD AM29F080B 1024KB (01:d5)
Flash Bank 1: not installed.
Mounting ROM fs: done
Initializing PCI: done
Initializing ethernet: 2 controller(s) found
Initializing IDE: found ALI M5229 at 00:78
spinning up second channel: done
scanning ide0: master
scanning ide1:
IDE: stabilizing spinup: 100%
Checking Memory: done

Press spacebar to enter ROM mode
Booting default method - From disk

First stage kernel (Linux): Decompressing - done
ERROR: cannot relocate with filesize 0
Second stage kernel: Decompressing - done
ERROR: cannot relocate with filesize 0
Linux version 2.6.16 (root@localhost.localdomain) (gcc version 3.4.5 20051201 (6
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e801: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f000 (usable)
BIOS-e801: 0000000000100000 - 0000000020000000 (usable)
512MB LOWMEM available.
DMI not present or invalid.
Allocating PCI resources starting at 30000000 (gap: 20000000:e0000000)
Built 1 zonelists
Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,115200 ip=off
Initializing CPU#0
PID hash table entries: 4096 (order: 12, 65536 bytes)
Detected 448.238 MHz processor.
Using tsc for high-res timesource
Console: colour dummy device 80×25
Dentry cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Memory: 515848k/524288k available (2165k kernel code, 8008k reserved, 506k data)
Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode… Ok.
Calibrating delay using timer specific routine.. 897.55 BogoMIPS (lpj=1795117)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
CPU: L1 I Cache: 32K (32 bytes/line), D cache 32K (32 bytes/line)
CPU: L2 Cache: 128K (32 bytes/line)
CPU: AMD-K6(tm)-III Processor stepping 04
Checking ‘hlt’ instruction… OK.
NET: Registered protocol family 16
PCI: Using configuration type 1
Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
SCSI subsystem initialized
usbcore: registered new driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new driver hub
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI quirk: region 0c80-0c9f claimed by ali7101 SMB
PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:01.0
IO window: disabled.
MEM window: disabled.
PREFETCH window: disabled.
VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.1
Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes)
Installing knfsd (copyright (C) 1996 okir@monad.swb.de).
Initializing Cryptographic API
io scheduler noop registered
io scheduler deadline registered (default)
Activating ISA DMA hang workarounds.
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards…
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
Real Time Clock Driver v1.12ac
Non-volatile memory driver v1.2
alim7101_wdt: Steve Hill .
alim7101_wdt: WDT driver for ALi M7101 initialised. timeout=30 sec (nowayout=0)
PNP: No PS/2 controller found. Probing ports directly.
serio: i8042 AUX port at 0×60,0×64 irq 12
serio: i8042 KBD port at 0×60,0×64 irq 1
Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 2 ports, IRQ sharing disabled
serial8250: ttyS0 at I/O 0×3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
serial8250: ttyS1 at I/O 0×2f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
loop: loaded (max 8 devices)
e100: Intel(R) PRO/100 Network Driver, 3.5.10-k2-NAPI
e100: Copyright(c) 1999-2005 Intel Corporation
e100: Modified by to ignore bad EEPROM checksums
natsemi dp8381x driver, version 1.07+LK1.0.17, Sep 27, 2002
originally by Donald Becker
http://www.scyld.com/network/natsemi.html
2.4.x kernel port by Jeff Garzik, Tjeerd Mulder
natsemi eth0: NatSemi DP8381[56] at 0xf7ffc000 (0000:00:10.0), 00:10:e0:03:ca:1.
natsemi eth1: NatSemi DP8381[56] at 0xf7ffb000 (0000:00:12.0), 00:10:e0:03:cd:d.
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
ALI15X3: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:0f.0
ALI15X3: chipset revision 193
ALI15X3: 100% native mode on irq 14
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xfdd0-0xfdd7, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xfdd8-0xfddf, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA
hda: ST320410A, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0xfdf8-0xfdff,0xfdf6 on irq 14
hda: max request size: 128KiB
hda: 39102336 sectors (20020 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=38792/16/63, UDMA(33)
hda: cache flushes not supported
hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4 < hda5 hda6 >
sym0: <875> rev 0×4 at pci 0000:00:0e.0 irq 12
sym0: No NVRAM, ID 7, Fast-20, SE, parity checking
sym0: SCSI BUS has been reset.
scsi0 : sym-2.2.2
ohci_hcd 0000:00:02.0: OHCI Host Controller
ohci_hcd 0000:00:02.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
ohci_hcd 0000:00:02.0: irq 6, io mem 0xf7fff000
usb usb1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 1-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
md: raid1 personality registered for level 1
md: md driver 0.90.3 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
md: bitmap version 4.39
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP route cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
TCP established hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
TCP bind hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 131072 bind 65536)
TCP reno registered
TCP bic registered
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 17
Using IPI Shortcut mode
Cobalt system type is Carmel
Cobalt Networks LED driver 1.0 (modified by jeff@404ster.com)
Cobalt Networks LCD driver 4.0 (modified by jeff@404ster.com)
Cobalt Networks Serial Number driver 1.6 (modified by jeff@404ster.com)
Cobalt Networks Watchdog Timer driver 1.0 (modified by jeff@404ster.com)
Cobalt Networks Sensor driver 1.0 (modified by jeff@404ster.com)
Cobalt Networks RAM Info driver 1.0 (modified by jeff@404ster.com)
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: autorun …
md: … autorun DONE.
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 140k freed
INIT: version 2.85 booting
Welcome to CentOS release 4.3 (Final)
Press ‘I’ to enter interactive startup.
Starting udev: [ OK ]
Initializing hardware… storage network audio done[ OK ]
Configuring kernel parameters: [ OK ]
Setting clock : Sun Feb 4 08:50:36 EST 2007 [ OK ]
Setting hostname localhost: [ OK ]
Your system appears to have shut down uncleanly
Press Y within 1 seconds to force file system integrity check…
Checking root filesystem
[/sbin/fsck.ext3 (1) -- /] fsck.ext3 -a /dev/hda1
/dev/hda1: clean, 24968/244320 files, 155184/488368 blocks
[ OK ]
Remounting root filesystem in read-write mode: [ OK ]
Checking filesystems
Checking all file systems.
[/sbin/fsck.ext3 (1) -- /var] fsck.ext3 -a /dev/hda2
/dev/hda2: recovering journal
/dev/hda2: clean, 429/244320 files, 18685/488376 blocks
[/sbin/fsck.ext3 (1) -- /tmp] fsck.ext3 -a /dev/hda5
/dev/hda5: recovering journal
/dev/hda5: clean, 12/244320 files, 15885/488368 blocks
[/sbin/fsck.ext3 (1) -- /home] fsck.ext3 -a /dev/hda6
/dev/hda6: recovering journal
/dev/hda6: clean, 11/1648320 files, 59939/3293506 blocks
[ OK ]
Mounting local filesystems: [ OK ]
Enabling local filesystem quotas: [ OK ]
Enabling swap space: [ OK ]
INIT: Entering runlevel: 3
Entering non-interactive startup
Checking for new hardware [ OK ]
Setting network parameters: [ OK ]
Bringing up loopback interface: [ OK ]
Bringing up interface eth0: [ OK ]
Starting system logger: [ OK ]
Starting kernel logger: [ OK ]
Starting irqbalance: [ OK ]
Starting portmap: [ OK ]
Mounting other filesystems: [ OK ]
Starting lm_sensors: [ OK ]
Starting automount: No Mountpoints Defined[ OK ]
Starting smartd: [ OK ]
Starting sshd:[ OK ]
Starting console mouse services: [ OK ]
Starting crond: [ OK ]
Starting lcdsleep.init: [ OK ]
Starting system message bus: [ OK ]
Starting HAL daemon: [ OK ]
mount: 192.168.0.100:/KNOPPIX/nfsroot-x86/install failed, reason given by served
/etc/rc3.d/S99local: line 9: /mnt/tmp/part2.sh: No such file or directory

CentOS release 4.3 (Final)
Kernel 2.6.16 on an i586

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 4th, 2007 at 10:34 am and is filed under qube. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.