Hercules and Slackware (slack/390) - Part 4

...Continuing from Part 3

Defining kernel boot-parameters

OK, so Hercules is configured the way we need.
But to be able to boot the Slack/390 kernel, we need to set some parameters.
It is more or less like setting boot-time parameters in your lilo.conf file, only a bit different :-)

The standard parmfile.txt came with only one (but very important) line:
ramdisk_size=22528 root=/dev/ram0 ro ip=off
This line defines the size of the ram disk and that our root will be found on /dev/ram0 (and mounted read-only)

But just booting the kernel won't get us anywhere. We need an interface to the outside world to install Slack/390 over NFS.

In the (download)/kernels directory we have a file called 'parmfile.values.txt' that explains all options, but to avoid suffering, I'll tell you here how I did it :-)

1) Basic parameters

DASD=120-121
This line tells us where (device numbers again) the DASDs are.

HOST=herc-slack.hn:eth0:192.168.1.162:1500
This line defines our host (actually the guest, as we are working in Hercules, not a real machine):
- herc-slack.hn is our Fully Qualified Domain Name (hostname.domain)
- eth0 is the name of our network interface
- 192.168.1.162 is our ip address
- 1500 is our MTU (Maximum Transfer Unit)

NETWORK=192.168.1.0:255.255.255.0:192.168.1.255:192.168.1.1
Here we define the rest of our network parameters, like we normally do in /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf:
- 192.168.1.0 is our network subnet
- 255.255.255.0 is our network mask
- 192.168.1.255 is our broadcast address
- 192.168.1.1 is our gateway
You will need to adapt these values to your reality...

DNS=192.168.1.110
Speaks for itself... Again, adapt to your reality

SEARCHDNS=hn
The domain name you would normally put in your /etc/resolv.conf as 'search xxx'

2) Defining your network interface

Getting the network to communicate was a bit of a struggle, as the information is not always very clear. But in the end I got it working with these lines:

LCS=0xf00,1
This is the Lan Channel Station we defined in hercules.cnf
- 0xf00 is the device address
- 1 is the type (an OSA-2 adapter in LCS mode)

CHANDEV=noauto;lcs0,0xf00,0xf01
Here we repeat the device addresses of out LCS adapter...

QETHPARM=add_parms,0x04,0xf00,0xf01
And again, just in another format:
- 0x04 stands for channel type LCS

3) Sample parmfile.txt

Again, to save trouble and time, here is an example of a parmfile. Copy the text and save it as (install)/rdr/parmfile.txt, overwriting the downloaded file:

ramdisk_size=22528 root=/dev/ram0 ro ip=off
DASD=120-121
HOST=herc-slack.hn:eth0:192.168.1.162:1500
NETWORK=192.168.1.0:255.255.255.0:192.168.1.255:192.168.1.1
DNS=192.168.1.110
SEARCHDNS=hn
LCS=0xf00,1
CHANDEV=noauto;lcs0,0xf00,0xf01
QETHPARM=add_parms,0x04,0xf00,0xf01


OK, we're finished editing files!
In my next post, we'll do our first IPL into GNU/Linux!