I have installed Debian on my Ultra 1 with a UltraSparc 1 CPU. This is the first time I've ever had any success in getting any linux distro installed over the past 3 years! Wow, did it take a while!
I do have one issue I don't believe is related to the patches. I can boot to Grub but grub fails to boot. Can't read disk label. Can't open disk label package I'm still looking for a solution to this but haven't found it yet. Any pointers here would be appreciated. I did boot into the rescue CD from Debian and updated GRUB2 and reinstall it. That didn't seem to help. The partition table type on my disk is sun and I do have the sparc64-ieee1275 modules for grub installed. Once I overcome this grub hurdle is there any process I should run to more thoroughly test this install? Something that would stress test these new patches explicitly? Are there any stats or other info from this system that would be helpful with validating this is working properly now? On Sat, Aug 30, 2025 at 3:51 PM Dennis Clarke <[email protected]> wrote: > On 8/30/25 03:40, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote: > > On Fri, 2025-08-29 at 18:41 -0400, Dennis Clarke wrote: > >> I will hunt around and see what I have laying about in a back room. > >> I know I have old Netra X1 stuff and maybe a few other units with very > >> old UltraSPARC processors in them. They will be horrifically slow. > >> The SPARC M7 or M8 will be a unicorn. Heard of only in myth. > > > > While I don't assume you have a SPARC M7-compatible machine, I think > > chances are good you might have a T1 machine. As a bonus, a test on > > an UltraSPARC I or II is very welcome as well. > > > ... > > > Still, it would be nice to have testing on real machines of these types: > > > > - UltraSPARC I or II > > Found one of these units : > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UltraSPARC_II#UltraSPARC_IIe > > > Resetting... > > Processor Speed = [Speed Jumper = 5] 500 MHz > Baud rate is 9600 > 8 Data bits, 1 stop bits, no parity (configured from lom) > > Firmware CORE Sun Microsystems, Inc. > @(#) core 1.0.18 2002/05/23 18:22 > Software Power ON > Verifying NVRAM...Done > Bootmode is 0 > MCR0 = 36a0bc04 > MCR1 = c0804000 > MCR2 = ff0bbbb > MCR3 = 3ff > Ecache Size = 256 KB > Clearing E$ Tags Done > Clearing I/D TLBs Done > Probing memory > Done > MEMBASE=0x60000000 > MEMSIZE=0x10000000 > Clearing memory...Done > Turning ON MMUs Done > Copy ROM to RAM (154720 bytes) Done > Orig PC=0x1fff0007edc New PC=0xf0f07f34 > Processor Speed=500MHz > Looking for Dropin FVM ... found > Decompressing Client Done > Transferring control to Client... > Reset Control: BXIR:0 BPOR:0 SXIR:0 SPOR:1 POR:0 > Probing upa at 1f,0 pci > Probing upa at 0,0 SUNW,UltraSPARC-IIe (256 Kb) > Loading Support Packages: kbd-translator > Loading onboard drivers: > Probing /pci@1f,0 Device 7 isa dma rtc power SUNW,lomh serial serial > flashprom > Probing /pci@1f,0 Device 3 pmu i2c temperature dimm dimm dimm dimm > i2c-nvram idprom motherboard-fru ppm beep fan-control > lomp > Probing Memory Bank #0 256 Megabytes > Probing Memory Bank #1 256 Megabytes > Probing Memory Bank #2 256 Megabytes > Probing Memory Bank #3 256 Megabytes > ChassisSerialNumber 51592229 > Probing /pci@1f,0 Device 7 > Probing /pci@1f,0 Device 3 > Probing /pci@1f,0 Device c ethernet > Probing /pci@1f,0 Device 5 ethernet > Probing /pci@1f,0 Device a usb > Probing /pci@1f,0 Device d ide disk cdrom > todm5819 Sun Netra X1 (UltraSPARC-IIe 500MHz), No Keyboard > OpenBoot 4.0, 1024 MB memory installed, Serial #51592229. > Ethernet address 0:3:ba:13:3c:25, Host ID: 83133c25. > > > This will be horrific in terms of speed but it seems to be a variant of > the UltraSPARC II. They are dirt cheap and on eBay for silly prices. > > With luck I can netboot the installer image. Seems to be an IDE bus > inside the thing. Who knows ... maybe an IDE DVD drive will boot. > > > -- > -- > Dennis Clarke > RISC-V/SPARC/PPC/ARM/CISC > UNIX and Linux spoken > > -- Jeremy Leonard [email protected] Cell: (517) 285-8309
