afs setup_linux

Linux/m68k

You can download a Linux/m68k kernel and ramdisk to boot from Debian m68k (12) page.

Linux/m68k settings have a special section [LILO] (for Linux loader), where you have some work to do. You must provide the kernel image file to use (of course) in the line Kernel=. A list of arguments to pass to the kernel to tell it some infos about the system, in the line Args=, and a root filesystem.

The Args= line must be filled with some infos, like the Atari frame buffer format, or more precisely, the video mode to use. Interleaved bitplanes formats are not supported, so it must be either monochrome (use video=atafb:sthigh) or 16 bits true colour mode.

You also need to add console=tty0 if you enable debugging by adding debug debug= for the Linux kernel to open the root console, or it will fail to go further in the boot process once it has mounted its root filesystem.

The root filesystem is the filesystem the Linux kernel will boot from, and is required. It can be a ramdisk image file, a floppy disk, or a partition from a hard disk. For ARAnyM, the floppy disk and the partition can be image files.

Once these lines (Kernel, Args, maybe Ramdisk) are filled, you can start ARAnyM with -l command-line parameter (wait a bit before Linux kernel starts)

Ramdisk image file

Give to ARAnyM's linux loader the full path to a ramdisk image file in the line Ramdisk=. It can be gzipped, no need to uncompress it yourself.

You'll need to have root=/dev/ram load_ramdisk=1 ramdisk_size= in the Args= line. Replace with a size in KB to allocate for the uncompressed ramdisk in RAM, 8000 seems to be a good default value. In fact this value is the size of the uncompressed ramdisk image. Remember you only have 14MB of STRAM, so add at least 16MB of FastRam to ARAnyM if you want to try Linux/m68k. This is the FastRAM= value in the [GLOBAL] section.

  [LILO]
  Kernel = /path/to/vmlinuz-2.2.25-atari
  Args = root=/dev/ram load_ramdisk=1 ramdisk_size=8000 [add some other arguments if needed]
  Ramdisk = /path/to/initrd22.gz

Floppy disk or image file

If you use the floppy disk image atari-root.img.gz from, uncompress it using gunzip, then edit the configuration file this way, to boot from the floppy disk image. You could also dd/rawcopy the image file to a real floppy disk, and use Floppy = to point to your real floppy drive.

  [GLOBAL]
  Floppy = /path/to/atari-root.img

  [LILO]
  Kernel = /path/to/vmlinuz-2.2.25-atari
  Args = root=/dev/fd0 [add some other arguments if needed]

ARAnyM Linux/m68k resources

We have developed some patches that improve the Linux/m68k run on ARAnyM. Most exciting thing is the ethernet driver.

You can get the patched kernel binary here.

Preinstalled Debian Woody disk image is here (88 MB, unpacked size 1 GB).

Preinstalled Debian Sarge disk image is here (113 MB, unpacked size 1 GB, updated 2006/08/26).

Preinstalled Debian Etch disk image is here (65 MB, unpacked size 1 GB, updated 2006/08/27).

The config file used for booting this Linux kernel is roughly as follows:

  [GLOBAL]
  FastRAM = 256
  Floppy = /tmp/linflop
  TOS = 
  EmuTOS = 
  AutoGrabMouse = No
  
  [LILO]
  Kernel = /tmp/vmlinux
  Args = root=/dev/hda1 video=atafb:vga16 stram_swap=0 debug=par
  Ramdisk = 
  
  [ETH0]
  Type = bridge
  Tunnel = tap0
  
  [STARTUP]
  GrabMouse = No
  Debugger = No
  
  [IDE0]
  Present = Yes
  IsCDROM = No
  ByteSwap = No
  ReadOnly = No
  Path = /tmp/sarge.img
  Cylinders = 2102
  Heads = 16
  SectorsPerTrack = 63
  ModelName = Master