Re: Install/upgrade report on Sparcstation LX
Frans Pop wrote: On Monday 07 November 2005 15:16, Neil Pilgrim wrote: Next I tried to upgrade to sarge (over the network), but quite quickly ran into the previously reported problem about circular dependencies of the 2.4.x kernel and libc6. After quite a bit of painful struggling and ineffective forcing (and getting nowhere, trying all the steps in the email threads I could find on this topic), I managed to get wget installed and manually downloaded a 2.4.27 kernel from (I think): http://sparclinux.mit.edu/sparc/debs/ Hmmm. Have you actually tried to follow the instructions in the Sarge Release Notes that should allow you to resolve this? Documentation? what's that? ;) No, I hadn't looked, mainly because previously everything has 'just worked' when I'd done an upgrade, and I hadn't seen a conclusion to any of the email threads which implied this problem was solved - if anything, they imply that transitional kernel packages were going to be used, rather than backported initrd-tools et al. Either way, it seems to be working now, and I'll sort out all the initrd things next. Thanks for pointing me to what I should have looked at :) Is it possible to update the messages when you try the upgrade, to point at the Release Notes? Ok, so perhaps its stating the obvious, but so do quite a few other messages :) I suppose a kernel is bigger than the backported tools to download, but it would have been nicer to have the message alternatively say 'please install the package kernel-...-sparc-transitional before continuing'. I guess arch-specific packages like this are a pain to set up? In any case, thanks to those who have worked on the Sparc port, long may it continue! Any idea about /etc/hosts? I guess this isn't an issue for most people, no idea what caused it - don't remember anything obvious, but hey, my memory's not perfect ;) -- Neil -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Install/upgrade report on Sparcstation LX
Hi all, After a few trials, and quite a lot of time, sarge is mostly set up on my Sparcstation LX. Machine specs (probably standard for an LX): - 50MHz (at least, based on the bogomips) MicroSparc, sun4m - 24M (6x4M) - ~350M /, ~50M swap I installed woody via an external SCSI CD-rom drive with no network connection. I then moved the machine to where a network connection was available. Next I tried to upgrade to sarge (over the network), but quite quickly ran into the previously reported problem about circular dependencies of the 2.4.x kernel and libc6. After quite a bit of painful struggling and ineffective forcing (and getting nowhere, trying all the steps in the email threads I could find on this topic), I managed to get wget installed and manually downloaded a 2.4.27 kernel from (I think): http://sparclinux.mit.edu/sparc/debs/ Thankfully this kernel did not require an initrd and so not invoke the circular dependencies. I rebooted, then upgrade the rest of the packages mostly ok. The only problem I have left is that for some reason /etc/hosts is absent, and some package upgrades - eg. exim3 - fail to configure (I guess these are related problems). BTW I'm currently upgrading to exim4. Of course I can hand-craft /etc/hosts, but wanted to check which package/stage didn't create it properly, although presumably this was the original woody install and so is largely pointless to report as a bug. Hope this helps anyone else using sparc32, -- Neil -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sun monitors (UK) [ASAP]
Just a heads up that a UK Uni near me is getting rid of some old Sun (19"?) monitors, so there *may* be some spare ones going if people could use them for dev work, but they're going within the next few days so I need to know ASAP. That said, I don't exactly want to get stuck with an excess of monitors that I have to ship out (how do you best pack a monitor for shipping anyway?) so unless you're seriously interested please don't ask unless you happen to be near me and want to pick stuff up. I'm guessing that its machines that are needed more than monitors, but I thought I'd better ask, although as yet I don't know how many are available. Cheers, -- Neil Pilgrim, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Running on its side/front? (U1)
Perhaps a stupid question, but has anyone had any problems with running an ultra-1 with the case on its side (or front)? There are some 'holes' in the case at the front of the Ultra-1s; I'm not sure whether these are for ventilation, but there are definite vents on either side. Also, not sure whether the internal drives are picky about the angle they run at! (reduced life?) In fact, apart from the heat-flow design, sideways stacking seems rather useful, for easy access to cables, etc. OTOH, then you lose a 'shelf' ;) OK, so I'm stretching it to fit debian in here ;) (although they are running debian atm!) Any tips greatly appreciated...its apparently not a common query based on the search results ;) -- Neil -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Sarge may be last Debian release for 32 bit sparc systems
Blars Blarson wrote: [...] Sun4m is the last supported 32-bit sparc architecture. Reportedly, the 2.6 kernel does not work in multi-processor mode on them, and dropping support of 2.4 from Etch is being discussed. Note that lack of hardware is not the problem, if anyone wants some sun4m systems (located in Los Angeles) let me know before they wind up in the recycle pile. To add to this for anyone who is interested, I have 5 sparcstation LX machines, some possibly needing the boot-lock removed (possible using a kernel hack some time ago, not sure now), which are currently just gathering dust in my bedroom. So if anyone is in the UK (Aberdeen, Scotland) and would work on updating the sun4m port, I can make one or more available too. I'm not sure how much memory they have, but perhaps the SS10/20 dimms that Eric Jorgensen advertised may work ok in them. OTOH while I'm not a kernel hacker, I could at least do installation/run-testing with these - I even have an external scsi cdrom drive for them, somewhere. -- Neil -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Kernel 2.6.8 - SILO/initrd problems
[...installed debian kernel-image 2.6.8 package...] [...didn't work...] > P.S I tried adding "initrd=/boot/initrd.img" to the /boot/silo.conf > file.. and while linux then booted to my login prompt, the keyboard > mapping was incredibly messed up (tried lots of different keyboards, > too), when I "stop" back into openprom the keyboard works (but only in > openprom) > > For instance, "a" is mapped to "1" and "s" is mapped to "2" and "d" is > mapped to "3" and CapsLock is mapped to "t". > > Sounds like something got royally messed up in some crucial memory > area > > ideas? AFAIK you need to have the initrd line in your silo.conf. However 2.6.x kernels appear to be broken under debian ATM - the reason that I'm not using 2.6.x :( http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=269405 kernel-image-2.6.8-1-sparc64: keyboard problem [bug in console-data] -- Neil
Sound on ultra-1
Hi all, I've been using debian sarge on two ultra-1 machines here for some time, and in general it has behaved fine. It would be even better if I could get the audio working :) (one is plain ultra-1, other is creator-3D) The cs4231 module is laoded, and the first time I try and play some sound, it appears to work OK. For example, I rebooted recently and was surprised when my amsn suddenly made a noise out of the speakers. However, if another app tries to access the sound, any subsequent attempts appear to fail. For example, I wondered after the success with amsn whether mpg321 would work: it briefly made some noise and then was quiet :( (as has happened before). After that, neither mpg321 or amsn would make any sound at all. I've not seen anybody posting problems of this nature, mostly just requests for info and suggestions to modprobe cs4231. Any ideas would be much appreciated :) Also, I upgraded sysvinit (and associated deps) to the sarge one when I had first installed debian on a sparc, and it failed to boot. I'm slightly wary of upgrading it now - does anyone else have a problem with it? (or any suggestions of how to recover if it does it again...I can't remember how I recovered it last time!) Cheers, -- Neil Pilgrim
