More info on this... The sparc list reports that tg3 is known not to work since it needs firmware which has been removed. In that case I think the driver should be removed and this should be documented, especially as it isn't clear the driver has failed with a 2.6 kernel.
I found an hme card and did a net install via that. The disk had Solaris on it originally, intended for dual boot and the installation trashed it. On the reboot after initial installation, it booted solaris, not silo, which failed like this: Rebooting with command: boot Boot device: disk File and args: SunOS Release 5.10 Version Generic 64-bit Copyright 1983-2005 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. Use is subject to license terms. WARNING: /[EMAIL PROTECTED],600000/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/[EMAIL PROTECTED],0 (sd0): Corrupt label - bad geometry Label says 71135847 blocks; Drive says 71132959 blocks WARNING: /[EMAIL PROTECTED],600000/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/[EMAIL PROTECTED],0 (sd0): Corrupt label - bad geometry Label says 71135847 blocks; Drive says 71132959 blocks WARNING: /[EMAIL PROTECTED],600000/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/[EMAIL PROTECTED],0 (sd0): Corrupt label - bad geometry Label says 71135847 blocks; Drive says 71132959 blocks Cannot mount root on /[EMAIL PROTECTED],600000/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/[EMAIL PROTECTED],0:a fstype ufs panic[cpu0]/thread=180e000: vfs_mountroot: cannot mount root 000000000180b960 genunix:vfs_mountroot+290 (800, 200, 200, 1835200, 11cac00, 187f400) %l0-3: 0000000000000000 000000000109c268 000000000109c000 000000000109c34c %l4-7: 000000000109c000 000000000109c068 00000000018ad400 0000000000000600 000000000180ba20 genunix:main+88 (1813c98, 1011c00, 1834340, 18a7c00, 0, 1813800) %l0-3: 000000000180e000 0000000000000001 000000000180c000 0000000001835200 %l4-7: 0000000070002000 0000000000000001 000000000181ba54 0000000000000000 skipping system dump - no dump device configured rebooting... I started again, repartitioning the disk as the installer showed no partitions, so it really was clobbered. Then the reboot fails similarly to this with either a 2.4 or 2.6 kernel install: SILO Version 1.4.9 boot: Allocated 8 Megs of memory at 0x40000000 for kernel Uncompressing image... Loaded kernel version 2.6.8 Loading initial ramdisk (3227648 bytes at 0x1F802000 phys, 0x40C00000 virt)... | Remapping the kernel... ERROR: Last Trap: Fast Instruction Access MMU Miss Error -256 ok -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]