RS/6000 44P Model 270 44P

[VAKKALANKA RAO Sridhar]

> Debian is possible but requires some effort on your part.

I have been very happy with the Debian installation on my p630 (which, I read is an upgrade over the 270). It is true that Debian requires some effort as it looks very broken to first time users, but once you read the documentation patiently and get accustomed to it, it becomes very easy. I installed only the first CD and the features (especially the graphics) are dazzling. For features that are not present (such as texinfo and ncurses), it is not difficult to download the source tarball, compile and install them.

The reason why I recommend Debian is that Florian Weps has already documented his efforts and posted them on the web. Refer to the linuxppc64-dev posting he made on 20030528, "Debian Installation on an IBM p630 LPAR".

Jeremy, if you do choose to follow instructions on Florian's URL, you will very likely end up getting a printout of Rolf Brudeseth's URL, "Debian network installation on IBM RS/6000 44P-170". On that (Brudeseth's) URL, it is very important that you avoid performing the step "Install Driver Modules (but not Kernel yet)". Needless to say, the "vmlinux" and "zImage.initrd" will be your own ppc64 ones (compiled by you) and not the 32-bit ones Brudeseth talks about.

Cheers
Sri

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