Frequently Asked Questions
In the following, a number of frequently asked questions (FAQ) and their answers are presented. This may answer some of the questions you have and may also help with troubleshooting.
Will this installation procedure also work on RaQ3/RaQ4
No, the installation system described here will only work on MIPS based Cobalt machines, i.e. Qube1 (Qube 2700), RaQ1, Qube2 (Qube 2800) and RaQ2. Unfortunately, I don't have access to an i386 based Cobalt machine so I cannot provide any help regarding this platform. As far as I know, there is no Debian installer that will simply work on those machines.
My kernel crashes when I use the disk and net at the same time
This should no longer be a problem with 2.6 kernels, as shipped with Debian etch. Please upgrade your system.
I have used your tar ball installation method but the method won't boot!
There are a number of reasons why this may be the case. Unfortunately, it can be quite hard to debug without a serial console. Here are some common reasons why booting may fail:
- Your hda1 partition is not of type ext2 revision 0. It is important that the partition is of this type because the firmware in the Cobalt cannot boot from modern (revision 1) ext2 filesystems. Are you sure that you passed the -r 0 option to mkfs.ext2. You can check the revision with tune2fs -l /dev/hda1 | grep revision.
- You did not use the disk layout that I described on my page. If you use a different disk layout, mount will complain during boot and ask you to confirm, something you obviously cannot do without serial console. Make sure that you're using the right disk layout or that you have adapted /etc/fstab according to the disk layout you have used. (The first partition always has to be the boot partition and it has to be of type ext2 revision 0).
- When you put the disk in your PC to unpack the tar ball did you change the disk to IDE slave? If so, are you sure you changed it back to IDE master before putting it in your Cobalt?
- You can try to load CoLo (the replacement Cobalt boot loader) from NFS and then use it to boot from disk. If this works it means that the Cobalt firmware cannot load CoLo from the boot partition. The most likely cause for this is that your first partition (the boot partition) is not of type ext2 revision 0 (see above). If booting this way fails as well the reason is probably that your boot partition (hda1) does not have the bootable flag set. Start fdisk and set it with the a command.
Is there a 2.6 kernel?
Debian etch uses a 2.6 kernel so please upgrade your machine.
Is there an installation routine like NetBSD offers?
Apparently NetBSD has a CD-ROM which you can put in a PC and then a Cobalt connected to this PC will automatically be installed. This is also how the installation of the old Cobalt OS worked. I don't plan to support this. However, debian-installer allows you to do fully automated installations and you could use that instead.
Can I put a bigger hard drive in my Cobalt?
Generally, yes. I have had reports from people successfully using a 160 GB in their Cobalt. However, there may be some Cobalt machines with a very old firmware that have a limit of 30 GB. I'm not really sure whether this restriction exists on some machines though.
What PCI cards can I put in my Qube?
The Qube1 (Qube 2700) and Qube2 have a PCI slot in which one PCI card can be put. Generally, most PCI cards should fine and the kernel supplied with Debian includes modules for a number of cards. However, please be aware that there is not terribly much space in the Qube so big PCI card will not fit. I've heard from people successfully using USB, SCSI and sound cards in their Qube.
Where can I find more information regarding Linux on Cobalt?
The Linux/MIPS project maintains a wiki which has a page with Cobalt related information.
Go back to my Debian on Cobalt page.