With the current OpenBIOS (svn.r1129) there are errors reading initrd from an ext2 partition using SILO.
Steps to reproduce:
1. Install Debian Wheezy RC1 (e.g. as described here http://tyom.blogspot.de/2013/03/debiansparc64-wheezy-under-qemu-how-to.html ) using the standard partition layout ( i.e. /boot parttion with an ext2 file system).
2. Try to boot from the wheezy disk, using it as a -hda image.
Below is the boot log with OFMEM_DEBUG enabled.
$ sparc64-softmmu/qemu-system-sparc64 -bios /path-to/openbios-devel/obj-sparc64/openbios-builtin.elf -m 384 -nographic -hda /path/debian-wheezy.qcow2
SILO Version 1.4.14 boot: OFMEM: ofmem_map_page_range 0000000040000000 -> 0000000000400000 0000000004000000 mode 0000000000000027 Allocated 64 Megs of memory at 0x40000000 for kernel Uncompressing image... Loaded kernel version 3.2.35 OFMEM: ofmem_map: Bad parameters (0000000004400000 0000000040C00000 000000000094DFFF)
^^^^^^ what happens here?
OFMEM: ofmem_map_page_range 0000000040c00000 -> 0000000004400000 000000000094e000 mode 0000000000000027 OFMEM: mapping altered virt=0000000040c00000) Loading initial ramdisk (9747774 bytes at 0x4400000 phys, 0x40C00000 virt)... | Read error on block 1296 (tried 262144, got 4294967295)
Read error on block 1296 (tried 262144, got 4294967295) | Read error on block 1810 (tried 262144, got 4294967295)
Read error on block 1810 (tried 262144, got 4294967295) \ Read error on block 2324 (tried 242688, got 4294967295)
Read error on block 2324 (tried 242688, got 4294967295) | Read error on block 3468 (tried 262144, got 4294967295)
Read error on block 3468 (tried 262144, got 4294967295)
Read error on block 3468 (tried 262144, got 4294967295) | Read error on block 4239 (tried 262144, got 4294967295)
Read error on block 4239 (tried 262144, got 4294967295) \ Read error on block 5780 (tried 1024, got 4294967295) | Read error on block 5524 (tried 262144, got 4294967295) | Read error on block 6295 (tried 262144, got 4294967295)
Read error on block 6295 (tried 262144, got 4294967295) OFMEM: ofmem_unmap 0000000040c00000 000000000094dfff [...] [ 17.710187] Unpacking initramfs... [ 17.861207] Initramfs unpacking failed: broken padding [ 17.861323] Freeing initrd memory: 9519k freed
-- Regards, Artyom Tarasenko
linux/sparc and solaris/sparc under qemu blog: http://tyom.blogspot.com/search/label/qemu