Re: installation difficulties
Hi, About two weeks ago, I wrote to the list with some problems doing my first non-x86 Debian install (on a Sparc 5 I picked up used). Everyone was really helpful in pointing out some of the architecture's peculiarities (max 1Gb root partition, which at first confused me since I assumed this BIOS bug was similar to that of old PC's where the START of the boot partition had to be in the first n sectors; it seems on this sparc, though, that the ENTIRE boot partition has to be under 1 gig). Anyway, everything's working fine now, but I came across what I thought might be a bug in the standard debian install, but i'm not confident enough that I felt to put it in the debian bugtracker, so instead thought I'd post it here: To get the install procedure to recognize my internal SCSI CD-ROM drive (OEM sun) after the reboot portion of the install (it automatically can boot the cd-rom during start of install), i had to hand-edit /etc/fstab and change: /dev/cdrom to /dev/scd0 in the first column. Then the continuation of the install (when it installs all the selected packages) will automatically find the cd-rom as it suggests that it should do. Anyway, again, I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, and I don't really need any help on it, since I managed to make it work, but I just wanted to share it with people who are more knowledgeable in case it should be corrected in the sources/ISO images. Thanks so much for all the helpful advice while I was installing. Take care, Daniel On Thu, 19 Oct 2000, Jeremy Rashbrooke wrote: > Hi Daniel, > > Curiously I'm having similar issues with my second Ultra-10 .. I think I > fumbled thru the first one by doing the sun-disk-label thing, and taking > the cyl/heads/sectors from the Alt-F3 (autodetected) stuff. It was > disturbing that it couldn't detect this itself .. since it had already > automatically > detected this itself a minute earlier. [shrug] > > Anyway .. to your problem. > > insmod/modprobe/depmod should work the the same way it does under > i386. The scsi cdrom device should be (!) /dev/scd0. apt-get has a > special mode for cdrom's .. so you shouldn't need to mount it yourself. > > If that's not happy, then you'll have to check /lib/modules/2.x.yy/scsi > for something that looks like 'scd.o' -- and insmod that first. > > If you're using the default kernel image, then I imagine that scsi cdrom > support is embedded within the kernel, though. > > >>> Daniel Freedman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 8:43:41 19/10/00 >>> > > Hi everyone, > > Thanks for all the advice so far. I've made some progress but I'm still > not all the way there. Now that I partition the Sparc 5 with a 500 Meg > "/", 1GB "/usr" and 512Meg swap, I'm able to get the bootup during > installation to have SILO find the vmlinuz and continue the installation > procedure (actually, its not hands-free as it initially boots with the > dreaded error: > Boot device:/iommu/sbus/[EMAIL PROTECTED],840/[EMAIL > PROTECTED],880/[EMAIL PROTECTED],0 File and > args: > Bad magic number in disk label > Can't open disk label package > Can't open boot device > but then I type "boot disk1" at the "ok" prompt, SILO comes up and finds > vmlinuz and it continues). > > However, just before starting installation of all the packages, it asks > for the media on which they're available. I specify the CD-ROM (Toshiba > 4x SCSI internal bootable that came with Sparc 5), but the routine is > unable to find my CD-ROM automatically. It asks for me to specify the > cd-rom device (I forget the exact message), so I try both "/cdrom" and > "/dev/cdrom", but these fail with the error "No block device found". I > can't install over the net because the academic environment I'm in won't > give me an IP drop for this machine. I'm thinking maybe I have to install > a loadable SCSI module for the kernel to be able to find the CD-ROM, but > the boot procedure is able to speak to the SCSI hard drive and recognizes > the CD-ROM on bootup (to speak nothing of installing the base package from > it), so I'm not sure if this is it. Further suggestions would be very much > appreciated (also on how to have the initial power-on boot go directly to > the appropriate disk1 rather than giving me the error message. Must I > tweak silo.conf?). > > Thanks so much and take care, > > Daniel > > On Tue, 17 Oct 2000, Ben Collins wrote: > > > Also try "ls" at the silo prompt and see if it's there. More than likely > > this is caused by boot being on a seperate partition. Might want to redo > > that installation without the extra /boot (try a 500Meg "/", 1G "/usr" and > > 512Meg swap). > > > > > > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >
Re: newbie questions
Lars, On Fri, 27 Oct 2000, Lars Hall wrote: > i have sparcstation5 > i have a solaris 2.6 cd from the factory and i can reinstall it all day > long (literally) without problems > i want to install linux and run gnome and or kde > i didnt find an iso image for debian (where can i get one?) so i > downloaded and burnt a redhat 6.2 for sparc iso image to cd on my win98 > pc. You have to make your own iso image for debian using the 'pseudo-image-kit'. Check out cdimage.debian.org. It uses rsync and other methods to vastly cut down bandwidth by relying upon ftp servers that already carry all the debian packages rather than making special servers just to handle the iso images (which are, of course, huge). It's almost completely automated though, so it's not that much harder than downloading an ISO, though practically it probably takes longer (and when I'm feeling lazy, I wish for ISO-downloading). Of course, if you have net-connectivity on the machine you're installing to, you could just download base and get all packages over the net; some people swear by this, though I've always liked the ISO from cd-rom install. On your specific installation issues with RedHat, I doubt that this would be the best list for specific non-debian distro-specific problems, but others might surely try to help. > them both up individually and the same thing happens. > i think my hardware is ok because solaris will install. > should i use the sun/sparc native partitions instead of native linux? I would think you'd want to use the ext2 partition type instead of sun as I'm sure that's supported much more fully. > should i give up and learn solaris? I wouldn't unless you specifically want the solaris job skills that might, in some situations, command higher salary. > do i need more ram ( i have 64 megs)? it's kinda slow, i guess. > i set my swap file to 128megs -- too big, too small? A swap file as double the amount of ram is generally a good rule of thumb, so you've chosen well here. I'm sure you could use more ram, but that's almost always true. > should i manually set /home /var /usr and / You should mount these directories on separate partitions as it makes it much easier to upgrade and prevents runaway storage from users or log files bringing the system down (I lost a whole day of research/coding last week because my departments' sysadmins let an AFS-mounted drive fill up and somehow as the disk filled up it completely wiped out my open main code file, necessitating I revert to the previous evening's offsite backup). > > thanks and help! > Hope this helped (I'm new to the Sparc side of Debian myself), so anything sparc-specific should be taken with a grain of salt... -Daniel > lars hall > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] >
Re: installation difficulties
Hi everyone, Thanks for all the advice so far. I've made some progress but I'm still not all the way there. Now that I partition the Sparc 5 with a 500 Meg "/", 1GB "/usr" and 512Meg swap, I'm able to get the bootup during installation to have SILO find the vmlinuz and continue the installation procedure (actually, its not hands-free as it initially boots with the dreaded error: Boot device:/iommu/sbus/[EMAIL PROTECTED],840/[EMAIL PROTECTED],880/[EMAIL PROTECTED],0 File and args: Bad magic number in disk label Can't open disk label package Can't open boot device but then I type "boot disk1" at the "ok" prompt, SILO comes up and finds vmlinuz and it continues). However, just before starting installation of all the packages, it asks for the media on which they're available. I specify the CD-ROM (Toshiba 4x SCSI internal bootable that came with Sparc 5), but the routine is unable to find my CD-ROM automatically. It asks for me to specify the cd-rom device (I forget the exact message), so I try both "/cdrom" and "/dev/cdrom", but these fail with the error "No block device found". I can't install over the net because the academic environment I'm in won't give me an IP drop for this machine. I'm thinking maybe I have to install a loadable SCSI module for the kernel to be able to find the CD-ROM, but the boot procedure is able to speak to the SCSI hard drive and recognizes the CD-ROM on bootup (to speak nothing of installing the base package from it), so I'm not sure if this is it. Further suggestions would be very much appreciated (also on how to have the initial power-on boot go directly to the appropriate disk1 rather than giving me the error message. Must I tweak silo.conf?). Thanks so much and take care, Daniel On Tue, 17 Oct 2000, Ben Collins wrote: > Also try "ls" at the silo prompt and see if it's there. More than likely > this is caused by boot being on a seperate partition. Might want to redo > that installation without the extra /boot (try a 500Meg "/", 1G "/usr" and > 512Meg swap). >
Re: installation difficulties
Joshua, Thanks for the suggestions, but I still haven't been able to make it work. I now partition my 2.1 GB drive as follows: /dev/sda1: 50 MBmounted as /boot /dev/sda2: ~1500 MBmounted as / /dev/sda3: special Sun Disk Image (type 5) /dev/sda4: 512 MBLinux Swap (machine has 256 MB RAM) When I reboot during installation, I get the same message that: Boot device:/iommu/sbus/[EMAIL PROTECTED],840/[EMAIL PROTECTED],880/[EMAIL PROTECTED],0 File and args: Bad magic number in disk label Can't open disk label package Can't open boot device Now, if I type "boot disk1", I get a different message than before. I used to get: Boot device:/iommu/sbus/[EMAIL PROTECTED],840/[EMAIL PROTECTED],880/[EMAIL PROTECTED],0 File and args: SILO Buggy old PROMs don't allow reading past 1GB from start of the disk. Send complains to SMCC Read error on block 294916 Cannot find /etc/silo.conf (Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read) Couldn't load /etc/silo.conf No config file loaded, you can boot just from this command line. Type [prompath;]part/path_to_image [parameters] on the prompt Now, I get: Rebooting with command: disk1 Boot device:/iommu/sbus/[EMAIL PROTECTED],840/[EMAIL PROTECTED],880/[EMAIL PROTECTED],0 File and args: SILO boot: < I type: "linux" > Cannot find /vmlinuz (Unknown ext2 error) Image not found try again So, it looks a little bit better, but I'm still not making much progress as I can't get beyond this. I'm wondering if this has anything to do with the boot process looking for vmlinuz in / which is then symlinked to vmlinuz-2.2.17-sun4cdm in /boot. But maybe there's the problem again that the vmlinuz in / that the boot process is looking for is in a partition that's larger than a 1 GB (even though /boot is only 50 MB and is /sda1). Sorta confused here Thanks everyone for all the help. I appreciate any more suggestions. Thanks so much, Daniel On Mon, 16 Oct 2000, Joshua Uziel wrote: > * Daniel Freedman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [001016 16:00]: > > Boot device:/iommu/sbus/[EMAIL PROTECTED],840/[EMAIL > > PROTECTED],880/[EMAIL PROTECTED],0 File and > > args: > > SILO Buggy old PROMs don't allow reading past 1GB from start of the disk. > > Send complains to SMCC > > > > Anyway, although I feel quite comfortable in general installing, > > administering, and using linux-x86 (Debian, etc.), I'm really new to the > > Sun architecture and feel at a loss as to how to make this work. > > Veryh simple solution... make a /boot partition at the head of the disk > and within the first 1GB of it. It's a known hardware limitation of > the sparc32 proms... sparc64 machines do not have this problem. > > Make that change, and all should work fine (well, in regards to this > problem, at least). :) >
Re: installation difficulties
I took the suggestion below (from Peter, thanks so much for your quick reply and help!): I ensured that in partitioning sda1 (first of my two Seagate 2.1 Gb drives, the other I'm ignoring until system is up and running), I chose the "s" option to make a sun disk label (partition type is 5), and I even had the installation routine scan for bad blocks on both root and swap partitions on this drive. Nonetheless, when I reboot in the installation process, I get the same message: Boot device:/iommu/sbus/[EMAIL PROTECTED],840/[EMAIL PROTECTED],880/[EMAIL PROTECTED],0 File and args: Bad magic number in disk label Can't open disk label package Can't open boot device A little more info: If I then type: "boot disk1" at the ok prompt (I'm not sure what exactly disk1 is, it was just a sample option I tried), I get this: Boot device:/iommu/sbus/[EMAIL PROTECTED],840/[EMAIL PROTECTED],880/[EMAIL PROTECTED],0 File and args: SILO Buggy old PROMs don't allow reading past 1GB from start of the disk. Send complains to SMCC Read error on block 294916 Cannot find /etc/silo.conf (Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read) Couldn't load /etc/silo.conf No config file loaded, you can boot just from this command line. Type [prompath;]part/path_to_image [parameters] on the prompt Anyway, although I feel quite comfortable in general installing, administering, and using linux-x86 (Debian, etc.), I'm really new to the Sun architecture and feel at a loss as to how to make this work. Continued suggestions/help would be really appreciated. Thanks so much, Daniel On Mon, 16 Oct 2000, Pieter Krul wrote: > Daniel Freedman wrote: > > > So, maybe my problem is that I haven't created a "Sun disk label", and I'm > > not really sure how to do so. I didn't see any explicit mention of this in > > the installation instructions for the sparc port of potato, but maybe I'm > > missing something. > > Boot from the cdrom and when you're in fdisk, use option 's' > to create a new Sun disklabel. > You can probably follow the defaults fdisk comes up with. > > Pieter My initial message: I'm trying to install Debian 2.2r0_CDa on a newly-acquired used SparcStation 5 (110MHz, 256 Mb RAM, 2 Seagate 2.1 Gb HD, Rom Rev. 2.24). I'm booting off the CD-ROM to start the installation process, and I'm successfully getting most of the way through (partitioning of disks, configuration of modules, installation of base, etc.) until I'm asked to reboot to install the remainder of packages (or first create rescue floppy if this doesn't work). I'm not able to create the rescue floppy (it fails on trying) and the reboot doesn't recognize the boot disk with the following error: Boot device:/iommu/sbus/[EMAIL PROTECTED],840/[EMAIL PROTECTED],880/[EMAIL PROTECTED],0 File and args: Bad magic number in disk label Can't open disk label package Can't open boot device
installation difficulties
Hi, I'm trying to install Debian 2.2r0_CDa on a newly-acquired used SparcStation 5 (110MHz, 256 Mb RAM, 2 Seagate 2.1 Gb HD, Rom Rev. 2.24). I'm booting off the CD-ROM to start the installation process, and I'm successfully getting most of the way through (partitioning of disks, configuration of modules, installation of base, etc.) until I'm asked to reboot to install the remainder of packages (or first create rescue floppy if this doesn't work). I'm not able to create the rescue floppy (it fails on trying) and the reboot doesn't recognize the boot disk with the following error: Boot device:/iommu/sbus/[EMAIL PROTECTED],840/[EMAIL PROTECTED],880/[EMAIL PROTECTED],0 File and args: Bad magic number in disk label Can't open disk label package Can't open boot device I tried to find reference to this on the mailing list archives and the closest I found was from Sabino Maggi ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): >If you are able to start the installation process by means of, say, the >rescue/root floppies (or network, cdrom, whatever) then the problem is >probably that you haven't created a "Sun disk label" when you have >partitioned your hd (if you need more details, please ask me directly and >I'll describe thoroughly what you need to do). So, maybe my problem is that I haven't created a "Sun disk label", and I'm not really sure how to do so. I didn't see any explicit mention of this in the installation instructions for the sparc port of potato, but maybe I'm missing something. Suggestions would be most appreciated and gratefully received. Thanks so much, Daniel
