root/prefix not defined when booting mini.iso in kvm

Simon Richter <[email protected]> Sun, 1 Mar 2026 17:37:47 +0900
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.ports.powerpc
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
Hi,

not sure if that needs to be fixed in Debian or in SLOF, but I get 
dumped into a GRUB rescue shell and need to manually set root and prefix 
to continue:

# kvm \
     -M pseries-9.0 \
     -m 32G \
     -accel kvm \
     -cpu host \
     -smp 64,sockets=2,dies=1,clusters=1,cores=8,threads=4 \
     -device '{"driver":"vfio-pci","host":"0030:03:00.0"}' \
     -nographic \
     -vga none \
     -drive format=raw,file=/dev/goji/test,if=virtio \
     -cdrom /srv/mini.iso


SLOF **********************************************************************
QEMU Starting
  Build Date = Dec 16 2025 07:01:50
  FW Version = release 20230918
  Press "s" to enter Open Firmware.

Populating /vdevice methods
Populating /vdevice/vty@71000000
Populating /vdevice/nvram@71000001
Populating /vdevice/l-lan@71000002
Populating /vdevice/v-scsi@71000003
        SCSI: Looking for devices
           8200000000000000 CD-ROM   : "QEMU     QEMU CD-ROM      2.5+"
Populating /pci@800000020000000
                      00 0000 (D) : 1af4 1001    virtio [ block ]
                      00 0800 (D) : 8086 e20b    vga*
No NVRAM common partition, re-initializing...
Scanning USB
Using default console: /vdevice/vty@71000000

   Welcome to Open Firmware

   Copyright (c) 2004, 2017 IBM Corporation All rights reserved.
   This program and the accompanying materials are made available
   under the terms of the BSD License available at
   http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php


Trying to load:  from: /pci@800000020000000/scsi@0 ...
E3404: Not a bootable device!
Trying to load:  from: /vdevice/v-scsi@71000003/disk@8200000000000000 
...   Successfully loaded
Welcome to GRUB!

error: ../../../grub-core/kern/ieee1275/init.c:1035:couldn't examine 
/ibm,secure
-boot property.
error: ../../../grub-core/kern/ieee1275/openfw.c:526:invalid partition 
number.
error: ../../../grub-core/kern/disk.c:240:disk `' not found.
error: ../../../grub-core/kern/disk.c:240:disk `' not found.
error: ../../../grub-core/kern/disk.c:240:disk `' not found.
error: ../../../grub-core/kern/disk.c:240:disk `' not found.
error: ../../../grub-core/kern/disk.c:240:disk `' not found.
error: ../../../grub-core/kern/disk.c:240:disk `' not found.
error: ../../../grub-core/kern/disk.c:240:disk `' not found.
error: ../../../grub-core/kern/disk.c:240:disk `' not found.
error: ../../../grub-core/kern/disk.c:240:disk `' not found.
error: ../../../grub-core/kern/disk.c:240:disk `' not found.
error: ../../../grub-core/kern/disk.c:240:disk `' not found.
grub rescue> ls
(ieee1275/disk) (ieee1275/cdrom) (ieee1275/cdrom,apple4) 
(ieee1275/cdrom,apple3)
  (ieee1275/cdrom,apple2) (ieee1275/cdrom,apple1)
grub rescue> set root=(ieee1275/cdrom)
grub rescue> set prefix=(ieee1275/cdrom)/boot/grub
grub rescue> insmod normal
grub rescue> normal

Installation proceeds without issues from there.

    Simon
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