I believe the key point is that you really need to check with Debian or CentOS or OpenFirmware if it really supports POWER5 CPU or not. I suspect not (You can see that Nigel also suspected so.) because from IBM material that I have for i5 machine, it supports only Linux from Red Hat and SuSE which no longer exists.
Education is not the learning of facts but the training of the mind to think. -- Albert Einstein.
Satid S.
Original Message:
Sent: Sun March 19, 2023 04:44 AM
From: Stuart MacIntosh
Subject: how to boot to SMS and OpenFirmware on i5/9406-520 ?
Thank you, Satid!
That explains a lot, this machine ran AIX using the integrated RAID controller if I'm not mistaken. However I am still unable to access the SMS from this serial console (assuming I would install AIX instead) when selecting them from the power-on menu. Should I not be able to reach the SMS menu to configure disks and LPARs from here?
I had hoped to simply boot a Debian or CentOS DVD from OpenFirmware. When I set the IPL partition to D the same B7005122 error is logged as when trying to boot to SMS or OpenFirmware. In addition B2003110 and B200F00D logged but seem related to the former issue.
Power On/Off System Current system power state: Off Current firmware boot side: Temporary Current system server firmware state: Not running 1. System boot speed Currently: Fast 2. Firmware boot side for the next boot Currently: Permanent 3. System operating mode Currently: Normal 4. AIX/Linux partition mode boot Currently: Continue to operating system 5. Boot to system server firmware Currently: Running 6. System power off policy Currently: Automatic 7. i5/OS partition mode boot Currently: D 8. Power on 98. Return to previous menu 99. Log out S1>
D200B09F D200B060 D200B06F D200E060 D200E06F D200B080 D200B08F D200C100 D200C1FF D200C200 D200C2FF C2002200 C20022FF C2002400 C2002450 C20024FF C2002300 C20023FF C2002500 C20025FF C2003100 B2003110 LP=001 B7005122
Thank you again for the help, the IBM Power platform is new to me!
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Stuart MacIntosh
Original Message:
Sent: Thu March 16, 2023 02:48 AM
From: Satid Singkorapoom
Subject: how to boot to SMS and OpenFirmware on i5/9406-520 ?
Dear Stuart
If you do a Google search with "ibm src b7005122", you will find an entry explaining that one possible cause of SRCB7005122 is that the load source disk unit cannot be found.

If you boot Linux from an optical drive, you need to set the IPL mode of the machine to "D", not A or B.
May I ask if you have all HW parts that support Linux in i520 machine? For an i5 machine, there are separate orderable HW parts (adapter cards. disk controller, disk drives, etc.) for IBM i as opposed to Linux for Power. If you have all HW for IBM i in the machine, Linux would not find a vlid disk unit to install.
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Education is not the learning of facts but the training of the mind to think. -- Albert Einstein.
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Satid S.
Original Message:
Sent: Wed March 15, 2023 08:07 AM
From: Stuart MacIntosh
Subject: how to boot to SMS and OpenFirmware on i5/9406-520 ?
hello i was wondering how to get to the SMS and Open Firmware menus on the i5/9406-520? (to install Linux)
The BMC menu i think it's called works via RS232 port A at 19200 8,N,1 without problem, but when I select to boot SMS or OpenFirmware then power on it gets stuck and goes no further. B7005122 is the last shown IPL message.
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Stuart MacIntosh
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