Linux on Amiga

Upgrading Amiga Linux kernel

This is a guide on how to upgrade the kernel for Debian 3.1 for Amiga.

Before upgrading the kernel

• Start up the machine
• Replace module init tools with newer version: module-init-tools-3.15-m68k.tar.gz
• Extract kernel 4.10.3 modules in /lib/modules/ modules-4.10.3.tar.gz
• Finally launch Linux with new kernel vmlinuz-4.10.3.tar.gz

Modern Linux on A1200/A3000

I have used https://buildroot.org/ to create a modern embededd linux system for Amiga A500/A600/1200 (with accelerator) and A3000 (no accelerator needed).

• Kernel: 4.10.3
• libc: uclibc-1.0.22
• tools: ssh, links (text-browser), telnet, uemacs

Download (copy image to disk with utility like dd):

• Harddrive image A500/A600/A1200 version (with IDE hdd): http://files.subsecret.dk/amiga/AmigaLinuxIde.tar.xz
• Harddrive image A3000 version (with SCSI hdd): http://files.subsecret.dk/amiga/AmigaLinuxScsi.tar.xz
• Buildroot config: http://files.subsecret.dk/amiga/buildroot-m68k-config.tar.xz

Setup and running on WinUAE:

• A1200:
• A3000:

Video guide

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL64Swv1hBtXdFMdVrkMYUEHZq6eKqD0_D

How to build new Amiga kernel yourself

QEMU m68k chroot environment

• Use Ubuntu linux distribution for this (Fedora seems to have problems with qemu-m68k binfmt)
• Install debootstrap: apt-get install debootstrap
• run apt-get install qemu-user-static
• Build qemu-m68k-static binary build from branch qemu-m68k-680x0-v2.7.0 at https://github.com/vivier/qemu-m68k
• Or download from here: qemu-m68k-static.tar.gz
• Run

debootstrap --no-check-gpg --variant=buildd --foreign --arch=m68k unstable sid-m68k-sbuild http://ftp.ports.debian.org/debian-ports/

• Copy the qemu-m68-static into sid-m68k-sbuild/usr/bin
• Chroot into sid-m68k-sbuild
• Run

debootstrap/debootstrap --second-stage

• Set (from outside chroot) sid-m68k-sbuild/etc/apt/sources.list to

deb http://ftp.ports.debian.org/debian-ports/ sid main

• exit and re-enter chroot
• Run from within chroot

apt-get install debian-ports-archive-keyring

How to build Amiga kernel yourself

• Get newest kernel from kernel.org
• Extract kernel
• Enter m68k chroot environment
• Run

make amiga_defconfig

• Now manual configure kernel with

make menuconfig

• Select Device Drivers - Real Time Clock - Change selection from M to star for "Oki MSM6242" and "Ricoh RP5C01" (RTC modules should now be build directly into kernel)
• To disable Tux startup logo: Select Device Drivers - Graphics support. Uncheck Bootup logo
• Now build kernel

make
make install
make modules_install

• Run depmod -a with kernel name, ie

depmod -a 4.10.2-amiga

• kernel image can now be found in /boot and modules in /lib/modules/

Helpful resources

• Amiga fdisk: http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/a/amiga-fdisk/amiga-fdisk-cross_0.04-15+b1_amd64.deb
• https://wiki.debian.org/M68k/sbuildQEMU
• https://fs-uae.net/docs/options/uae-rtc