The Linux/PARISC FAQ

  1. What binaries will Linux/PARISC support?

    We intend to support 4 binary formats:

    We're not promising to get all HP/UX binaries running on Linux. In particular those which are multithreaded are unlikely to ever be supported. Nevertheless, many HP/UX binaries will run on Linux/PARISC today.

  2. Will it work on my system?

    Please see this explanation.

  3. How do I compile the kernel?

    Please follow the Recipe.

  4. What tools are needed to compile the kernel?

    You need a toolchain which will generate PA-RISC ELF32 binaries. For all intents and purposes, this means GCC and GNU binutils. A tar archive containing binaries for Linux/i386 (with glibc 2.1 or above) is available by FTP at puffin.external.hp.com:/pub/parisc/binaries/LinuxX86/xc-latest.tgz. Alternatively you can check out GCC and binutils from our CVS repository. See the recipe in the question above for details on how to build them.

  5. How do I get my system to boot from the network?

    We have an excellent NFS-Root-HOWTO written by Martin Petersen with the aid of several others.

  6. I'm using the Alpha 0.1 release CD and the machine stops after printing 
      pdc_cons die !!
    what's going on?

    The kernel on the CD is set up for serial port console. If you attach a serial cable to the back of your machine then you should see messages appearing on that console instead. You should be able to replace this kernel with one which uses the STI console instead.

  7. I'm using the Alpha 0.1 release CD and the machine stops after printing 
      request_irq(259, c01ec76c, 0x0, asp, c3rcd080)
    what's going on?

    This is a bug in the kernel shipped on the CD. It only affects certain machines and has been fixed in the current CVS tree. We recommend you acquire a newer kernel from the FTP site.

  8. I'm booting parisc linux on an early Series 700 workstation, and the machine hangs after printing: 
      ASP version 1 at ..... found
    what's going on?

    This is a bug in the parallel port driver. It currently does not work on earlier Series 700 workstations. You can workaround the problem by reconfiguring your kernel and removing support for the parallel port (CONFIG_PARPORT_GSC).

  9. I am unable to use vi as it says 
    linux:unknown terminal type.

    The debian ncurses package is missing. On early NFS root tarballs, ncurses-base was accidentally omitted. See dselect or dpkg documentation on how to install packages. Debian Packages website has a list of packages available. Available hppa architecture dependent packages are now mirror'd. ncurses-base is an example of an architecture independent package.

  10. How can I check if the PDC (firmware) revision is the latest?

    Lots of boot and some performance problems can be attributed to firmware "bugs". All machines print the PDC revision at boot up. Or once at "Main Menu>" or "BOOT_ADMIN>" one can print the PDC revision with "in fv" (c3000) or "in" (712) command.

    Putting more intelligence in any software module will increase the odds of having bugs. Since firmware updates (aka patches) are freely available (below), the latest firmware is required when reporting problems instead of attempting other workarounds. Page 17 of HPUX-11 Patch Management gives an overview of what's on the HP FFS Patch Server.

    The PDC Patch Catalog lists firmware revs for systems which have upgradeable firmware. If it's not listed either you don't need a patch (yet :^) or it's not upgradeable. Systems older than 712 or 715's (eg 735) are only upgradeable via chip replacement.

    BEWARE: It's possible to kill a system by either upgrading the wrong firmware or the upgrade doesn't finish properly for any reason. Don't upgrade unless you have evidence of a PDC problem. Text files on the HP patch depot describe what was fixed in each revision since the machine model was released.