I have recently leased a couple of Sun Sparc IPXes as dedicated servers from an ISP (netmar.com). The main reason I went with netmar was because I could install whatever OS I wanted to over the serial console. They have the console running through a terminal server with access through ssh.
The staff at netmar was kind enough to test the install for me before turning it over to me. Here is a summary of some of the problems he ran into. I was hoping someone familiar with debian-sparc could give me some pointers. Of course, none of this knowlege is first hand. Staff Account <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I've setup RARP and TFTP service on the network. > You should be able to boot off the network. However, it appears > that Debian defaults to using the on-board video if it finds it (yours > has one built in that can't be removed), and thus won't use the actual > console device (serial port). I took the liberty of also downloading the > latest Redhat image (which for sparc is 6.2). That booted up fine, and > used the default console device, rather than trying to use the video > so that it could display PC-like white-on-black text. > >[snip] > > Now, I currently have the RARP/TFTP server setup to feed your machines the > Debian, > boot image. But like I said, I don't think that'll work (it didn't on two > test > machines I tried). I recommend redhat (largely because it worked on my test). > The Debian boots that didn't work forced me to go power cycle the machine-- > it wouldn't even respond to BREAK's (CTRL-\ b). But you're welcome to try. I don't want to subscribe to the list until I actually have a sparc running debian (or commit to getting one running debian). So, please cc your replies to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- (__) Doug Alcorn (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.lathi.net) oo / PGP 02B3 1E26 BCF2 9AAF 93F1 61D7 450C B264 3E63 D543 |_/ If you're a capitalist and you have the best goods and they're free, you don't have to proselytize, you just have to wait.
