Well, nfsroot installation is working :-)) I'm now testing the serial console install but I experience some troubles with serial devices under Linux: the kernel (2.0.35) is using /dev/cua0 as serial device, but Debian recommends to use /dev/ttyS0. I remember I fixed this in the 2.0.33 I used as base of my previous bootdisks to be able to refer to ttyS0 all the time (it is somewhere in the sparc setup kernel code). I can cope with the standard settings of the kernel by using cua0 at installation time, especially symlinking /dev/console to cua0, then switching to ttyS0 for the getty entry in inittab after the system was configured. In fact, the getty process spawn by init can use ttyS0. Nevertheless, I should leave /dev/console to point to cua0, even if init is using ttyS0, otherwise boot messages will never be displayed until the login prompt :-(
In 2.1 kernel, /dev/console is managed directly by the kernel itself, so there is no need to set up such symlink. But I'm waiting for a 2.1.125 or newer debian package compiled with NFSROOT, BOOTP & RARP options to do more tests (thanks in advance Christian). For 2.0, could I leave the /dev/console -> cua0 link, or should the kernel be fixed to use ttySx devices instead ? PS: due to this problem, I will delay the release of bootdisks for few days. PPS: actually there is no way to enable swap on diskless workstation. I remember I heard a long time ago about swap-on-nfs patch for linux. Is it still available somewhere ? Could it be integrated in the debian kernel ? -- Eric Delaunay | "La guerre justifie l'existence des militaires. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | En les supprimant." Henri Jeanson (1900-1970)
