I've been trying to get Debian Sparc 7.10.0 installed on a Sun V215 with an XVR300 graphics card with little success. Wanted to try 7.10.0, as it seemsto be the last supported Debian for Sparc. I installed Squeeze onto a V210 with XVR100 a few years ago and apart from a few config issues, it installed out of the box and is stable.
7.10.0 is different. To start, the system won't install at all if a graphics card is in the machine and just hangs during the boot process. No Linux expert, but fwics, the system switches from obp -> boot -> kernel and it looks like at the switch to kernel that the machine hangs with the following: 0.000000] Console: colour dummy device 80x25 0.000000] Console (tty0) enabled, bootconsole disabled Just not seeing the frame buffer ? Tried a pci XVR100 and a stock pcie ati 2250 with same results. Ok, take the graphics card out and run a text install, which works as expected. Can login, network working etc. Text install allows login with no issues afaics, but as soon as a graphics card is fitted, the sytems again hangs. For reference, reinstalled Squeeze on the same machine with framebuffer fitted, which works as expected. Are there any command line switches to force framebuffer use ?. Have looked at the Lilo page and tried: append "debain-installer/framebuffer=true", as per the Linux Sparc install docs with no success. Must be missing something here, or is it just broken and if so, what is the fix ?. No Linux expert, but the goal is to use Linux or FreeBSD Sparc for embedded development work. Already have a basic cross gcc tool chain built and working on Solaris 10 Sparc, but want to evaluate other OS options as well. As mentioned, no kernel hacker, but have a few older Sun machines that could be contributed to the project foc if that would be any help. Mainly V240 series, but maybe a couple of others as well. In Oxford, Uk... Regards, Chris