> > 1) Acer 3680-2862, i943GML chipset, upgraded from
> > Celeron M 440 to Core Duo T2250. The CD boots, but
> > shortly after displaying the copyright notice and
> > before displaying the detecting devices message,
> it
> > locks hard.
> 
> You could try to find out some more information by
> enabling
> verbose kernel boot messages, booting with the  kmdb
> kernel
> debugger, and tracing kernel module loading.
> 
> See this blog for details:
> 
> 
> ttp://blogs.sun.com/dmick/entry/diagnosing_kernel_hang
> s_panics_with

Thanks... I'll let you know what happens.

> > 2) Sony Vaio PCG-K37, 3.2ghz P4m with an Ali
> chipset.
> > The CD boots, but something goes wrong when
> detecting
> > devices. After a long delay, I get two messages
> about
> > problems detecting the UARTs for asy0 and asy1; 
> 
> Is that something like:
> 
> asy1: UART @ 2f8 scratch register: expected 0x5a,
>  got 0xff
>    Cannot identify UART chip at 2f8

That's it exactly.

> That happens on systems without usable ACPI support.
> When ACPI isn't available for device enumeration,
> Solaris
> falls back to hardcoded values for certain ISA
> devices
> (PS/2 keyboard & mouse, 2 serial ports, 1 parallel
> port).
> 
> Typically there are no more serial ports on current
> HW,
> so the hardcoded values are wrong, and this results
> in the
> above UART/ASY messages.
> 
> Should be harmless.  It's just a warning.

I figured it should be, but thanks for explaining it.

> Are there any BIOS setup options to enable ACPI?

No. Sony stripped this version of the Phoenix BIOS of just about any settable 
values. I assume that ACPI is available, but not being recognized. (Sodding 
miserable BIOS... it even limits the box to 1GB of RAM even though the chipset 
is supposed to support 2GB.)

> > Eventually, I get an error that the
> > console service can not be started and get dropped
> to
> > the prompt for maintenance mode.
> 
> Not sure why is does this.  Maybe because the
> hardcoded
> values for ISA device are wrong for the PS/2 keyboard
> / mouse.
> What kind of keyboard / mouse hardware are you using
> here?
> USB (unlikely for a notebook)?  Does the keyboard
> work
> for a login?

I *think* the keyboard and trackpad are considered to be PS/2. The keyboard 
does work allow me to enter the root password of "opensolaris", so I don't 
think that this  is the issue.

> Or it's unable to access the LiveCD, maybe due to
> missing
> support of the Ali chipset?  What kind of HDD &
> optical devices
> are you using on this system?  P-ATA or S-ATA?

This sounds more likely. Both the DVD drive and the HD are PATA. FWIW, I did 
try the "-B atapi-cd-dma-enable=0" parameters to the kernel, but that  didn't 
seem to make a difference.

Thanks for the insights...
John
 
 
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