Installing debian stretch mipsel on qemu

debian-mipsel-on-qemu.md

Installing debian "stretch" mipsel on qemu

Download debian iso

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/release/current/mipsel/iso-cd/debian-9.1.0-mipsel-netinst.iso

Download initrd & vmlinux

http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stretch/main/installer-mipsel/current/images/malta/netboot/initrd.gz

http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stretch/main/installer-mipsel/current/images/malta/netboot/vmlinux-4.9.0-3-4kc-malta

Create a new hard disk

$ qemu-img create -f qcow2 hda.qcow 10G

Install debian

$ qemu-system-mipsel -cdrom debian-9.1.0-mipsel-netinst.iso \
-hda hda.qcow \
-M malta \
-kernel vmlinux-4.9.0-3-4kc-malta \
-boot d \
-initrd initrd.gz \
-m 512 \
-nographic \
-append "root=/dev/sda1 nokaslr" 

Allow for the installation to complete. When done copy over the vmlinux-4.9.0-3-4kc-malta file from the Debian VM to the host machine. See references [4] on how to copy vmlinux-4.9.0-3-4kc-malta from hda.qcow to your host.

Boot from hda

$ qemu-system-mipsel -hda hda.qcow \
-M malta \
-kernel vmlinux-4.9.0-3-4kc-malta \
-initrd initrd.gz \
-m 512 \
-nographic \
-append "root=/dev/sda1 nokaslr" 

Important note: vmlinux-4.9.0-3-4kc-malta is the file copied from hda.qcow in the previous step and NOT the original one downloaded from ftp.debian.org. If you use the original file the Debian installer will rerun.

References

• https://github.com/kholia/mips-hacking
• https://linux-tips.com/t/booting-from-an-iso-image-using-qemu/136
• https://wiki.debian.org/QEMU
• http://ask.xmodulo.com/mount-qcow2-disk-image-linux.html

Thanks explained installation!, I made a repo for installing process script.