List - I have a SPARCbook 3gx (sun4m MicroSPARC 110MHz) with which I am having some trouble installing Openbsd/sparc 4.8. I have verified that all devices I'm aware of work in Solaris 6. I hope one of you might be able to offer some suggestions for what to try next. http://www.openbsd.org/sparc.html#install
*PROBLEM:* I have so far been unable to install OpenBSD 4.8, though booting from the installation media and into the installer works. For all the methods I have tried so far (ethernet, CDROM, external jaz), I am unable to access the sparc binary distribution sets. I can boot from floppy (floppy48,fs) or from cd (cd48.iso), but once I am in the installer, I cannot access media via a) CDROM b) network (lance ethernet le0) device c) PCMCIA (not supported by kernel on the install image). I may be exposing multiple problems below, but the main problem I am trying to solve is only to get the system installed. *System:* SPARCbook 3gx disks: - SCSI ID 3 is internal - only 2 of the three ids 4-6 can be hooked up at the same time for lack of cables with which to daisy chain them: SCSI ID 3: 1.2 GB internal SCSI disk SCSI ID 4: Jaz drive SCSI ID 5: CD burner (sun bootable) SCSI ID 6: SCSI floppy *Tried:* I'll list each of the things I tried below: 1. first attempt: boot from floppy, then use Lance Ethernet (le0) to install across the internet. Configuration: sd0 SCSI ID 3: 1.2 GB internal SCSI disk sd1 SCSI ID 6: SCSI Floppy sd2 SCSI ID 5 CD Burner (physically cables run from the laptop to the floppy and then to the cd burner) le0 Lance Ethernet with cable to tranceiver, rj45 to ethernet to wifi bridge (this worked in Solaris 6). I started in Solaris, created the boot floppy (actually I created 3 of them in case any didn't work), formating each one in turn, and then using dd if=floppy48.fs of=/dev/vol/...<forgotten> bs=36b Next I booted from the floppy and attemped to configure the ethernet interface via dhcp. this failed with many broadcasts for DHCP DISCOVER I dropped to the shell and assigned it a static IP of 192.168.0.56 based on the subnet which should have worked. I verified that this IP was not taken. it still was not able to ping the gateway at 192.168.0.1 which other machines on the network were able to do. Also, when OpenBSD said it was broadcasting to discover DHCP server, the activity lights on the router/bridge to which it was attached were not flashing as they normally did under Solaris 6. 2. second attempt: boot from floppy, then use Lance Ethernet (le) to install through crossover cable to another machine hosting packages by http. Configuration: same as #1 above. In Solaris, I had already verified that I could use a crossover cable to copy packages from the other machine's apache server to the SPARCbook via http. Under OpenBSD, I assigned le0 an IP address: ifconfig le0 192.168.3.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 ifconfig le0 up ping 192.168.3.2 <it worked> Under the other machine running linux, the corresponding ethernet interface had an IP of 192.168.3.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 and was pingable under Solaris. Under OpenBSD, requests timed out. Any firewalls were disabled on the other machine. 3. boot from cdrom Configuration: same as #1 above I created a cd using cdrecord on Solaris 6 and the same burner which I was about to use to do the installation. I booted from this cdrom, thinking more devices might be availabe. (I have PCMCIA network cards I might be able to try) the pcmcia controller isn't supported under the boot image, thought OpenBSD does support this device when compiled to do so. I tried the same things I had tried in #2 again with the same result. 4. boot from cdrom, but attempt to install packages from another CDROM after installer boots into ramdisk. Configuration: same as above. I created a vanilla iso on my linux machine with no special options passed to mkisofs. All sparc binary distribution sets were placed in / of the iso. I booted from the cdrom and then tried to install from the iso. This is when I noticed that sd2 was giving timeouts. (I don't have the exact error message with me, but I will extract get it later) I was unable to access the cdrom distribution sets in sd2. 5. boot from floppy, distribution sets on jaz drive. Configuration: sd0 SCSI ID 3: 1.2 GB internal SCSI disk sd1 SCSI ID 6: SCSI Floppy sd2 SCSI ID 4 Jaz (physically cables run from the laptop to the floppy and then to the jaz) (Actually nothing was on the jaz drive - I had already blown away solaris by this point. I have all solaris media, so I can put it back if need be.) I got the same timeouts on sd2 with the jaz drive and was unable to access it or mount it, or even cat the raw devices. 6. Just boot from cdrom with no other devices attached. Configuration: sd0 SCSI ID 3: 1.2 GB internal SCSI disk sd1 SCSI ID 5: cdrom I suspected the last device in the chain was giving difficulty, so I left teh floppy out of the chain, but still got the timeouts. (7) - I can't try with cdrom and jaz because I don't have a centronics to centronics cable. If you've read this far, thanks for your time. I hope you have some ideas for what I might try next. -- Justin Haynes <[email protected]>
