DHT-Walnut -Debian Install

This page contains information on installing Debian on the DHT-Walnut board.

uImage.2.6.15.4-walnut-debinstall-df4 contains a kernel and a ramdisk containing the Debian Netboot Installer. The installer will download a basic Debian System from the internet and install it to your hard disk. Your DHT-Walnut board must have internet access in order to use this installer.

Download uImage.2.6.15.4-walnut-debinstall-df4 and boot it on your walnut with commands similar to:

setenv bootargs console=ttyS0,115200 root=/dev/ram tftpboot 1000000 uImage.2.6.15.4-walnut-debinstall-df4 bootm

''If you are using a different console device or baudrate, please adjust the bootargs environment variable as required.''

After the kernel boots, the Debian Installer will automatically begin and present a series of menus to proceed with the installation.

The Debian Installation Guide for PowerPC is available at http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/powerpc/index.html.en

Since the Debian Installer image used here was not built specifically for the DHT-Walnut board or for the specific kernel being used, the following notes may be helpful.


 * The modules on the Installer image don't match the kernel, so you will see messages like

''No kernel modules were found. This probably is due to a mismatch'' between the kernel used by this version of the installer and the kernel version available in the archive.

This is not a problem, since the needed modules are already built into the kernel.

When this question

Continue the install without loading kernel modules?

appears, simply answer Yes
 * You may see a message like

Partition disks This partitioner doesn't have information about the default type of the partition tables on your architecture.

If so, answer Yes to this question: Continue with partitioning?
 * When partitioning the hard disk, create a small (large enough to hold any kernel image you would want to boot) partition for the kernel image.


 * I have only had success installing the stable (sarge) distribution. testing (etch) and unstable (sid) would not install for me. This isn't really a problem because you can easily upgrade distributions after installing the base system.


 * When the installer asks you to choose a kernel to install, simply choose one of the provided options. The kernel will be installed in /boot, but we will not use it with the DHT-Walnut board.  Later, you may remove the /boot directory entirely if you wish.


 * Use the instructions in [wiki:DHT-WalnutBootingFromHdd How to boot from hard disk] to boot from the hard disk. Since in my system, /dev/hda1 contains my kernel image and partition 4 contains the Debian root (/) directory, I use the following commands to boot from the hard disk.

setenv bootargs console=ttyS0,115200 root=/dev/hda4 bootdisk 0:1

Please let me know of any success or problems you encounter by sending an e-mail to [mailto:dale-elinux@farnsworth.org dale-elinux@farnsworth.org].