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],8400000/[EMAIL > PROTECTED],8800000/[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] > >
