From: qx@shire.math.columbia.edu (Qi Xia) Subject: Linux boot successfully on an IBM PS/2-55sx MCA machine Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1993 21:31:41 GMT
I am very happy to announce that Linux works on my old PS/2-55sx MCA
machine. I guess this is the first time Linux successfully boot on
an IBM PS/2 MCA machine. Following is what happened.
I formated a 1.44MB floppy with xfs filesystem, move old root disk stuff
to that disk. And Installed kernel, by using my simple boot, with harddisk
configed out.
When I turn on the switch of PS/2-55sx. Kernel report
[something deleted]
floppy: unexpected interupt
floppy: FDC version 0x90
[something deleted]
It then ask to insert root disk and hit RETRUN. Before I can do so, the kernel
start read floppy. Since I have a bootable root disk, it have no problem
to mount root device. After a while login showed up. I login-ed, and
everything seem fine.
I am thinking about write a harddisk driver for PS/2 ESDI (my PS/2-55sx
has a 60MB ESDI). Probably, I can start with ESDI driver in MINIX 1.6.
I had modified this driver to work with MINIX 386 (then MINIX 386 is patched
against MINIX 1.5 and ESDI driver is not in 1.5), long long ago.
I guess I will do so after xfs-0.7 (BETA) is released in a week or so.
If some one can explain to me the interface of Linux harddisk driver and
the other part of the kernel, it will definitly help. When I start to read
the code of that part, I will not totally in dark. Thank you in advance.
-Frank Xia