Netboot cross-compiled kernel

[David O'Brien]

On Sat, Aug 09, 2003 at 10:51:59AM -0600, Greg Lewis wrote:
> I grabbed the 4.8 miniiso and unpacked it in a suitable directory and
> put in an fstab with just a root NFS mount (for now).  After setting up
> bootp and tftp the machine does boot, only to have the GENERIC kernel
> panic trying to mount root:

You'll probably have a much easier time getting started with FreeBSD on
Alpha if you're willing to just do a normal disk install. :-)

The EB164 is well supported and you should have no problems running
FreeBSD on it.


> Is there something else I need to do when cross building, or does it not
> work in 4.x?  I did notice the cross-build compiles code with -mcpu=ev4
> where the CPU identifies during boot as:
> 
> CPU: EV56 (21164A)
> 
> Is this a problem?  I.e. should I do the build with -mcpu=ev56?

Not a problem.  You'll get better performance with -mcpu=ev56, but all
Alpha's can run ev4 code.


> Its running SRM 4.8, although that seems to be working fine in terms of
> the netbooting getting going and I'm loathe to upgrade unless I need to
> after having bad experience trying to get SRM working on an LX board.

Getting SRM inititally instaled on a machine with AlphaBIOS only can be a
PITA -- but upgrading your SRM from SRM is quite straight forward and
easy.