Re: Fwd: Debian on Linux-SH4

Hi,

> > Thanks, I guess I did it the hard way then (through the debian-installer) :)
> >
> > BTW: some problems I noticed during installation:
> >
> > - debian-installer for sh4 (probably one of the most recent ones) has
> > tools compiled with glibc-2.33 but the version of glibc inside (initrd
> > image) is glibc-2.32, so some tools like mount and part*something
> > refuse to run with sth like "missing symbol GLIBC_2.33"
>
> I will build updated debian-installer images within the next days which should
> fix the problem.
>
> > - debian-installer comes with kernel version 5.13 or so, and the
> > pool-sh4 has only 5.15.*-di kernels - I used custom kernel with custom
> > kernel version (so it matches the -di kernel version)
>
> That will be fixed by an updated image build as well.
>
> > - older debian-installers for sh4 won't run on r2d with 64MB RAM due
> > to OOOms. I added some ninja swap images to bypass that. I think newer
> > installers have low-RAM mode, and it works better.
>
> I never managed to get debian-installer to boot on qemu-sh4-system, did you?
>
> If yes, I would be very interested to learn how you managed to get the kernel
> to boot in qemu-sh4.

Ha.. I didn't. debian's cross-sh4-gcc (I think I tried versions 11 10
8 and 6) doesn't build "working" kernels. Dunno why. It compiles, but
doesn't boot.

In the end I had to compile it myself with one of those
https://toolchains.bootlin.com/releases_sh-sh4.html and use it with
istaller's initrd. Fortunately it allowed me to proceed even if the
*-di* modules couldn't be loaded. The only thing I had to do was to
trick the installer into thinking that my custom kernel is the same
kernel version as the *di* version in pool-sh4 via EXTRAVERSION in
kernel's Makefile, because the "anna" thingy stops the installation
process w/o it.

$ ./sh-sh4--glibc--stable/bin/sh4-linux-gcc --version
sh4-linux-gcc.br_real (Buildroot 2017.05) 5.4.0

[    0.000000] Linux version 5.15.0 (jagger@jd)
(sh4-buildroot-linux-gnu-gcc.br_real (Buildroot 2017.05) 5.4.0, GNU ld
(GNU Binutils) 2.27) #37 Tue Jan 11 12:58:34 CET 2022