Plan 9 and Inferno at the Google Summer of Code

Booting plan9 on OLPC

Finally Plan9 kernel is up and running on OLPC !!

Here is the complete procedure to boot plan9 on OLPC:

  1. You will need a USB thumb drive and OLPC laptop (of course).

  2. Following 3 files are needs, which should be stored on USB drive.

    1. plan9.ini : plan9 configuration file
    2. 9pcf : plan9 kernel
    3. loader.elf : Bootloader which loads plan9 kernerl (9pcf) on OLPC
  3. When you start the OLPC laptop, you need to interrupt the boot sequence to go to open firmware (OFW) command prompt. Here is the procedure:

    1. Hold down the Game key when machine starts.
    2. When asked (on screen) release the game key, after releasing it, OFW will start probing for hardware.
    3. After finishing the probing, OFW will ask you to press Esc key within 3 seconds. Once you press Esc then you will land up to OFW command prompt.
  4. To check files on attached thumb drive execute following command,
    dir disk:\

  5. Execute following command to boot loader.elf instead of standard linux kernel.
    setenv boot-device disk:\loader.elf

  6. Execute following command to keep USB system alive after OFW transfers control to plan9 boot loader.
    ' noop to go-hook

  7. Execute following command to map OLPC’s linear frame buffer to virtual address 0xfd000000.
    h# 910 config-l@ dup 100.0000 -1 mmu-map

  8. Finally, we are ready to boot plan9. Here is the final command,
    boot

And you should see Plan9 printed on screen !!
Currently it only prints plan9, as there is no proper display driver.