Re: etch installation on sun blade 1000
On Tue, May 22, 2007 at 09:15:31PM +0200, Talecki Michal wrote: thank you guys for helpful advices. i will check things out tomorow... seems like it is firmware issue as Josip Rodin wrote. by the way: i will probably need to pass all those installation screens again and here comes my little question: is it possible to change the terminal mode during install or whatsoever to see any highlighting belt? i do not see any indicator choosing options, so I need to count keystrokes and finally I am not quite sure if I pointed the right one. :) I had similar problems on a Sun Blade 100 - I think there is a variable DEBIAN_FRONTEND which you can set to text. If you go back a couple of weeks in the archives, you should find a post from me detailing a successful install and the command line I passed to get there. It should be on the debian-sparc mailing list All best, Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[MAISun Blade 100 Etch install - need /etc/silo.conf [SOLVED]
Here's the magic I needed: install video=atyfb:off ide=nodma DEBIAN_FRONTEND=text for an install using the Etch KDE CD #1 for Sparc ide=nodma was the clincher: with that, the CDROM would work. video=atyfb:off was necessary because the ATI Rage wouldn't work correctly without this nad would lock immediately after the Booting Linux message. DEBIAN_FRONTEND=text was needed because the newt frontend doesn't show up and because the Sun screen doesn't show well in a Unicode locale. All installed, I've possibly still got to do some X Windows tweaking but that's OK. Thanks to all who helped, especially Josip Andy - End forwarded message - -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Etch installation on Sun Blade 100 - magic for /etc/silo.conf needed
On Tue, May 08, 2007 at 01:34:44AM +0200, Josip Rodin wrote: I guess you want something simple, like this: root=/dev/hda2 partition=2 default=Linux read-only timeout=100 append= video=atyfb:off image=/boot/vmlinuz label=Linux initrd=/boot/initrd.img The first parameter, root, specifies the device that should be mounted as root. It's no different from ix86, I guess. The partition parameter is the number of the partition that is implied in the /some/thing paths later in the file. Andy *hugs* Josip :) That's what I needed: I'd ended up with a completely blank silo.conf. I wasn't sure whether I needed the full scale @PCI magic stuff that you have to work out at an OpenPROM prompt as the first line where it said root= Not knowing whether SILO numbered partitions from 0 or 1, I'd ended up with an off-by-one error _as well_ :( The OpenPROM is not immediately obvious - and not very well documented if you do a random Google search. Ditto silo.conf - at least when you're under the time pressure/pressure of why doesn't the ###*??# thing work that you put yourself under :) I think I can probably write this one off to experience: don't do stuff without good 'Net access, don't do stuff in a relative hurry on a Friday afternoon - ASK THE EXPERTS _FIRST_ :) After you edit, run silo to check the configuration. I did - and it parsed it correctly. It looks like I'd managed to produce a grammatically correct SILO configuration file that validated - but was wrongly phrased :( Thanks again, Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Etch installation on Sun Blade 100 - magic for /etc/silo.conf needed
On Mon, May 07, 2007 at 11:28:59PM +0200, Josip Rodin wrote: On Mon, May 07, 2007 at 02:43:21PM +, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote: A Sun [Ubuntu installer] died at about 85% installed :( Those two sound more like hardware problems, if it happens so haphazardly? SILO boots, kernel loads then fails saying /dev/hda2 isn't recognised as valid Then this is not a SILO problem. What is hda supposed to be, IDE primary master? Do you have the initrd set up properly so that the IDE driver can be loaded? hda is primary master, yes The kernel stanza in silo.conf should simply have an additional: initrd=/boot/initrd.img-2.6.something Can you post me a complete silo.conf so that I can see what the boot and root arguments should be. I'm not sure what the first line in a silo.conf should be: good worked examples would be appreciated. If you don't have the file, you can generate it with update-initramfs. Thanks for this - Jim's point about video=atyfb:off is also very useful. Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Successful install at work on Sun Blade 1500
One of the larger modern deskside tower Suns with a Sparc processor. All went well except that a.) User interrupted the CD half way through the boot - once he realised and let it boot properly the base install was faultless. Finding a Sun keyboard with L1-A to allow us to get to the boot prom was also fun. b.) The Sun card (VR100 ?? - rebadged ATI Radeon) appears sensitive to which PCI slot it's in. Xserver-xorg would report no device found. Moving the card to a different slot cured it. This was all at work so I haven't got a mroe detailed install report. Beta3 looks very fine - that's the fastest and best Sun install I've had in ages :) Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sun Blade 150 install - fails on reboot, fails to configure X?
Just been troubleshooting an install at work for a colleague who previously posted to the list about troubles with CD ROM on Sun Blade. Finding the right net install image, he can install Debian and then add the normal CD ROMS to his apt sources. Installing a complete workstation then works - or appears to. Reboot fails: SILO has the wrong arguments? The kernel boots and then fails to find the initrd. I've had this problem before - if anyone can remember the magic incantation to feed SILO so that we can get back into our newly installed system, I'd be grateful :) My colleague did manage to install a basic system sometime previously - when I tried to configure X, all I could get was no usable video modes found or some such. The card is an ATI Rage of some description - I'm not at work now so can't check exactly - does anyone have a working XF86Config. System running Sarge i.e. Stable apart from needing the netinst disk to bootstrap it. Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Sun SS20/ Etch network problem
On Mon, Nov 28, 2005 at 11:04:04AM -, Andrew, Chris Mr wrote: Hi, all. Last night, I downloaded and installed Etch (latest image from the D-I page at debian.org) on an SS20 with a Sun Lance network card. When I reboot after the first part of the install, I get the message that 'eth0 is deprecated' or something like that. When I do ifconfig, all I see is the loopback address. /etc/network/options is deprecated - perhaps? What does ifconfig eth0 up do? What does the stanza in /etc/network/interfaces look like? Andy Could it possibly be that the right module isn't getting loaded at boot? Alternatively, is it possible to slow the network bit of the boot process, to give the card sufficient time to get an ip address from the router? cd /lib/modules/something kernel-related/net insmod lance.ko What's the result? Andy Any thoughts appreciated. Many thanks, Chris. CJH ANDREW [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Install to sparc 20 without video ??
On Sat, Nov 19, 2005 at 10:45:57PM +0100, Marc Coevoet wrote: I have the sparcstation naow... So, when I disconnect the keyboard, the NVRAM still needs to be set to true .. Not sure that this is true: if you set up minicom on another box via null modem cable, then disconnect video and keyboard and then power up the Sun. It should drop straight to serial port as console. If I boot from one of the cds to install, will I get to boot it right via the serial?? Sarge CD's should be fine. And if I have a linux system on the mac, which program should I use to use the serial port on it ?? (I know I can dial in with eg yellowdoglinux on this,mac G3/266 system, so the serial works..) Minicom / seyon or similar. HTH, Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Install to sparc 20 without video ??
On Wed, Nov 16, 2005 at 06:18:26AM +1000, Hamish Greig wrote: On Tue, 15 Nov 2005 22:23, Marc Coevoet wrote: Op 15-nov-05 om 11:41 heeft Hamish Greig het volgende geschreven: And a keyboard must be attached and detected or the console output goes to the serial port instead of the monitor you really mean: no keyboard --- output to serial ?? Thta's fine. But I'll have the keyboard. So, not connect it. hello list-dwellers, correct me if I am wrong on the above please ? Hamish Greig Correct as I understand it: connect a correct cable to the serial port disconnect the keyboard and power on. Correct cable should probably be a null modem?? Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Install to sparc 20 without video ??
On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 12:49:25AM +0100, Marc Coevoet wrote: Is it possible without a Sun monitor to install ?? I mean: I could login via the network ... Serial console onto serial port: use minicom at the other end Send 9600,8,N,1 data That should do it - I've done similar on an Alpha machine. Andy the pin layout is different from VGA etc .. Marc -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Sparc Station 20 and Etch
On Mon, Nov 07, 2005 at 02:26:47PM -, Andrew, Chris Mr wrote: Hi, all. Just subscribed to the list after being off it for 6 months plus. Has anybody managed to install Etch on A SS20? I do boot cdrom, CDROM boots, start the install, all looking good, then installer tries to detect my CDROM (that I booted from), and prompts me for modules. I have tried all the options, but no luck. BTW, I booted the default Etch kernel. It's quite annoying, because my Sparc only likes new media, not CDRW'sso getting through some disks. BTW, I reported this twice as a bug, but no acknowledgement, so not sure if being addressed. Next plan could be a Sarge install (no probs), then maybe see if apt-get dist-upgrade works. I've never tried this. On an SS20 - I had Etch running for a while IIRC. Best plan is probably to do an absolutely minimum Sarge install, then change your sources.list and do an apt-get update ; apt-get dist-upgrade. This works for me almost every time on any machine I try it: the trick is to have as little as possible installed as you upgrade and add it gradually thereafter. If you need to install 1000 packages: install 200 and add the rest 50 at a time: takes longer but is generally much less error prone :) Andy Any ideas? Thanks, Chris. CJH ANDREW DII SA4a2a Mil: 94382 3450 Civ: 01225 813450 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: booting a sunblade 100
On Mon, Nov 07, 2005 at 11:51:35AM -0800, Matt Dunford wrote: Hi All, Many thanks for all of the replies. Booting via tftp definately works. I have yet to get the installer to complete (it always hangs halfway through), but I'm devoting some time to it when there's a pause in work. I've dumped the blade 150 (since it's having some other problems) and am now concentrating on a 100. Hi All, Just an update. The daily netboot is working for me now. Installs flawlessly - my thanks to everyone who has worked on it! I've added sparc to our autoinstall system. Added a few sparc systems to dhcp, changed one architecture line in tftp and poof they're all in sync with the rest of our network. Ah, debian is beautiful. Did you try it again on any 150's ? Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: booting a sunblade 100
On Tue, Oct 25, 2005 at 09:57:39AM -0700, Matt Dunford wrote: Hi All, Has anyone successfully installed debian on a SunBlade 100? I've been trying various netinst images: http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/3.1_r0a/sparc/iso-cd/debian-31r0a-sparc-netinst.iso http://cdimage.debian.org/pub/cdimage-testing/daily/sparc/current/debian-testing-sparc-netinst.iso I seem to recall that there was a post to an unofficial netinst that would work when I asked this question about six weeks ago. If I recall correctly, the netinst on the official images wasn't actually ready for the Sun Blades as we released Sarge. I've helped to get Debian installed on a Sun Blade at work: there were ide problems and intermittent CD recognition problems. In the end, I think we disconnected the CD in order to get the thing to install and did a TFTP boot over the network. Not fun and not ultra reliable. I'd like to try again but this was done in a hurry to meet a fairly urgent deadline. Others also appear to be having problems. One other solution which has worked is to use debootstrap from a Solaris install. This takes considerable application but appears to work fine. I _think_ this way you may have fewer problems. [Floppy, it seems, will never work - something about obscure hardware interfaces and non-standard connections.] Not straightforward: almost enough to put me off Debian on architectures other than Intel/AMD immediately :( I never get to the debian installer itself. The stable complains of cramfs: wrong magic. The current pukes with Remapping the kernel... Fast Instruction Access MMU Miss. I've been googling around, reading the documention, trying everything I see other people doing. I've played with various boot params: ramdisk_size=16000, mem=128m, etc. I've got a stack of Blades collecting dust and I'm anxious to get them off Solaris. Any thoughts? -- Sincerely, Matt Dunford Unix Systems Administrator DOE Joint Genome Institute url: http://www.jgi.doe.gov email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone: 925-296-5844 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Fwd: Re: D-I update for Sparc (daily builds)
On Fri, Sep 09, 2005 at 02:45:47AM -0700, Tyler wrote: I can provide the box to test on, if you guys provide testing builds... :) I've got an ultra 5 with a 360mhz cpu in it, that isn't doing anything still. Tyler. Ben Collins wrote: Most of what I have heard is in relation to first-cd.b bootloader and Ultra III's. Since I don't have an Ultra III, I can't do any testing. A datum point: no installer I've tried to date today on a Sun Blade 150 will work. I tried the unofficial installer CD (netboot, 120M) referenced from the Wiki page mentioned by Frans Pop, the TFTP boot image (5.3M) used by can't remember/spell his name, sorry Sharma and referenced in the Debian HOWTO and the Sarge CD1. Sarge CD1 - boots fine, then dies because it can't find the initrd or a root filesystem. TFTP - boots fine, but expects a connection to the Internet - I was doing this stand alone :( Issues with the ide-cd and/or the USB keyboard module. Tends to stall a couple of seconds after ide-cd is initialised. Unofficial netinst - much better than the two above - won't install the base system at all. Does understand USB. Finally, despairing after two days work, we put the Sarge CD1 into an Ultra 5. The Sharma HOWTO references problems with the date command: the machine locks solid on setting the timezone - there's a date there somewhere. Still odd problems and unexplained lockups occasionally. Debian on Ultras is somewhat screwy - but I may be a corner case (installing on newest/newer hardware, standalone with no Internet connection and only the 13 CD's _and_ installing on Sparc which is less tested than Intel). Still, the client got a machine with SSH, X Windows and a development environment on - so they are largely happy :) Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Sun Blade 150 fails to install - magic incantation needed?
On Thu, Sep 08, 2005 at 12:41:57AM -0700, Tyler wrote: I would suggest giving a Woody install a go... and then you can always do a dist-upgrade to sarge, minus the kernel if it still causes issues. Tyler. Andrew M.A. Cater wrote: Attempting to install Debian Sarge on a Sun Blade 150 which has a current working Solaris 9 on it. Boot from CD works - SILO prompt comes up, select linux and so on ... :) The problem is that this is the UltraSparc with USB keyboard and mouse - it's only about three years old at most. If I use Woody, then the chances are that that support was extremely bleeding edge when Woody was released. I may just be one of the unlucky ones - but the number of Sparc installs relative to Intel is small. The install manual seems mainly based on an Intel-centric view, unfortunately :( Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Various unstable brokenness - X keyboard
On Wed, Dec 15, 2004 at 02:08:44PM +0100, Henry Margies wrote: After updating xlibs I had the same problem. My keyboard layout (only in X) was totally messed up. TAB was on Q, Left cursor on pause and so on... The problem was in /etc/X11/xkb/symbols/sun/us. I disabled all lines that contained: include srvr_ctrl(xfree86); That solved the problem for me, but it is just a hack. Yes, but a very successful one :) It's just worked for me :) Thanks for this. The last bit of wierdness which I forgot from my post the other day. Ctrl-alt-Fwhatever doesn't switch to a virtual terminal. Once X is up, it stays up and you can't move away from it. Andy
Various unstable brokenness - X keyboard, dual processor kernel, console
All, Just a couple of quick notes: X keyboard is totally impossible and can't even get Ctrl-alt-backspace to kill it because I can't type ctrl-alt-bksp :( This is a sparc20 with two processors and 288M of memory: if and only if X is actually running, the dual processor kernel dies almost immediately with a watchdog reset - I've had to revert to a single processor kernel. [Both 2.4.27] Andy
Re: Sarge install cd mounting problem
On Tue, Dec 07, 2004 at 10:51:13PM -0500, Jurij Smakov wrote: On Mon, 6 Dec 2004, Jason Parvu wrote: I downloaded sarge and after I boot into the install ... Hi, This is a known issue with the RC2 installer, mentioned in the errata [0]. The failure is due to the missing isofs.o module on sparc32, the fix is on its way (not yet fixed in daily builds as of today, December 7th). If you feel adventurous, here's a workaround: Bloody brilliant :) I was just about to bring up the same problem - your workaround has solved it. Now using the Dec 6th debian netinst installer .iso. How soon can we fix the installer. RC2 is effectively useless if we're not careful. Andy
Re: RC1 - successful install on SPARCServer20 (32 bit - 2.4.26SMP)
On Thu, Aug 19, 2004 at 10:56:57AM +0200, Carsten Friede wrote: Andrew M.A. Cater wrote: Totally excellent dudes, RC1 rocks. It needed a bit of thinking about partitioning to get /boot and the start of / within the first 1G of the 18.2G - the auto partitioner resulted in something that wouldn't boot - but being offered the correct SMP kernel by default was totally awesome :) Hey, hoe did you get the system running without segmentation faults and hang ups at start up? This is, what I get, when I try to install Sarge on my SPARCstation 20 with two processors. RC1 of the Debian installer available by following the link from http://cdimage.debian.org
RC1 - successful install on SPARCServer20 (32 bit - 2.4.26SMP)
Totally excellent dudes, RC1 rocks. It needed a bit of thinking about partitioning to get /boot and the start of / within the first 1G of the 18.2G - the auto partitioner resulted in something that wouldn't boot - but being offered the correct SMP kernel by default was totally awesome :) Now downloading the best part of 450M of new packages to get the desktop installed. Since I have a spare 18G drive in the machine, I may yet run this machine as a show demo machine in October - one drive with Etch, one drive with Sarge :) As you may have noticed from other posts, I've had problems with aboot - all help with silo/OpenPROM also gratefully received - I currently have to type in a long string because it appears that the SCSI disks are automagically reversed post install??? This is not new - I've had to do this since Woody. Andy
SS20 video config?
Have a SS20 SMP machine now running unstable. Video card is a cg6 IIRC. Having hand hacked XF86Config-4, I'm nearly there but now can't find font fixed. I know I've had this working with XFree86 4.1 or so - I can't remember how the hell I did it :( Anybody's working config would help and be greatly appreciated. I've also got the problem that 2.4.24 SMP doesn't boot - vmlinuz is too large or some such message - I know someone else has had similar problems. Any 2.6.3 for sparc32 yet? Sorry for more questions than answers - but its been a long day :) All the best to the list, Andy
Re: Hello
On Mon, Oct 13, 2003 at 02:07:31PM -0400, Ben Collins wrote: RedHat doesn't acknowledge Aurora; SuSE openly doesn't support theirs; Mandrake keeps theirs around on the ftp server. All are community supported. Difference is, guys doing the ports actually have the machines. Not that I'm blasting Debian; you see, they have a guy in change of X, and guy in charge of gcc... Not a guy in charge of Sparcs, Alphas, etc. If you'd come to the Linux Expo at Olympia - you would have seen Debian on a Sparc :) [Admittedly, an old Sparc20] Feel free to ask any questions that are appropriate at any Debian stand at any exhibition. If they'd wanted it as a demo. - they could have had the same distribution on my Alpha PWS 433 Debian _do_ have Alpha and Sparc developers and they keep things well up to date. I can, however, sympathise with XFree86 problems. Have fun with Debian and apt-get - the initial install's the worst part :) Andy
