Re: sparcs in general
Hello, But, the above machines are rather slow, and they're the old 32-bit SuperSPARC-class chips Yep. If you are looking for a workstation type box you are probably better going with an Ultra (Sparc64), although I dont have such a box (unfortunatly!!) at home so I can't tell you what the performance is like. Bye for Now, Ian - Ian Chilton E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -
Re: sparcs in general
On Tue, 20 Aug 2002, Kevin J. Kalupson wrote: I've been running debian for over two years now on PC's and now doing server related things as well. I am about to acquire a sparc 5 and a sparc 10 workstation. Will they work in a similar fashion as a PC? What I mean is, will I be able to install debian and have them function as stand alone machines on my network or are the dependent some how on a larger sun server? I have allready assumed answers to these questions but I have learned to know better than to count on assumptions. Does anyone have any recomendations for a new sun with linux user, etc? Well, the machines aren't PCs. They are different, yes, and the install procedure is slightly different, but it's nothing that can't be overcome with a bit of poking around. A few things you'll need to know: stop-a drops you to firmware (prompt is 'ok') to boot from a CD-ROM, one usually types: 'boot cdrom' or if that doesn't work, you can specify the device's full path, starting with /iommu (you can 'cd /iommu' and 'ls' once inside to check out the contents). Once you have Linux installed on these boxes, they will function much like their PC counterparts; they are indeed independent of a large-scale server. But, the above machines are rather slow, and they're the old 32-bit SuperSPARC-class chips (SPARCstations are about ten years old now, maybe more). They are fun to play with, though, so enjoy :) -- Kelsey Hudson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Software Engineer/UNIX Systems Administrator Compendium Technologies, Inc (619) 725-0771 ---
Re: sparcs in general
Hi I have potato running on a production server, easy as any pc to install, make yourself familiar with the sun open boot prom at http://sunsolve.sun.com and look in the etc Feature archive for the item Hardware Diagnostics for SunTM Systems: A Toolkit for System Administrators Woody is snap to install, there is a problem with early versions of potato with sun mouse configs, but either will run happily on a 5 or a 10 (have installed on both). You might like to customise your kernel, if you are that way inclined, the kernel images supplied are fine, just read carefully about the type. Have a look at http://ultralinux.org in ther faq, it is a little dated but relevant. they are happy little items all on their own :) cheers david On Tue, 2002-08-20 at 16:01, Kevin J. Kalupson wrote: I've been running debian for over two years now on PC's and now doing server related things as well. I am about to acquire a sparc 5 and a sparc 10 workstation. Will they work in a similar fashion as a PC? What I mean is, will I be able to install debian and have them function as stand alone machines on my network or are the dependent some how on a larger sun server? I have allready assumed answers to these questions but I have learned to know better than to count on assumptions. Does anyone have any recomendations for a new sun with linux user, etc? Thank you, Kevin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Boot procedure on old SPARCs
Last time I checked the Debain install guide showed how to do this. On Wed, Feb 21, 2001 at 11:37:03AM +0900, Ragga Muffin wrote: Ben Collins [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Feb 20, 2001 at 07:33:28PM +0100, Guenter Millahn wrote: Dear Linux'ers, I have some old diskless SPARCstations of 4c and 4m series (SLC, LC, LX). I want to re-animate them as Desktopsthem using Debian. How much memory do these machines have ? My advice is: = 16 Mb , Sun4c, go for NetBSD, it really shines. = 32 Mb , Sun4m, go for Debian, it rocks. 16-32 Mb, toss a coin... The Boot/Rootserver is a Sun E450 running Solaris8. I want to set up a DHCP server for easier maintainance of my computers. And here are my questions: 1. Can anybody send me a pointer to document/URL where is explained the Old SPARCstation diskless boot·ñ+uence in detail (explanations here are also welcome ;-) Check your nearest debian mirror, in main/disks-sparc for instructions. That should get you going. 2. Is it enough to install the Solaris8 DHCP Server Software on the E450 or do I need any of rarpd and tftpd? Hmm... don't know about the Solaris dhcpd. Is it not possible to use (or borrow) an IP address during the installation ? That's because to netboot you will initially need to have rarpd running on a machine on the same segment that answers the requests from the sparc. Tftp is then needed to transfer the kernel or the ramdisk image. ALSO NOTE: at the sparc boot prompt you'll have to specify the IP address (and optionally the NFS-root mount), because the bootkernel in 2.2r2 doesn't have autoconfig etc. built in!!! I.E. like: boot net IP=123.223.333.443 3. Are the Bootproms of the old SPARCs able to generate bootp requests and to process bootp replies or is RARP/TFTP the only way to map MAC to IP address for these machines and boot 'em up? That's what I believe (iow, rarp/tftp), however, some Sun guru might be able to clarify ;) HTH, and good luck. -- Ragga -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] pgpO4qqk6OeMr.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Boot procedure on old SPARCs
How much memory do these machines have ? My advice is: = 16 Mb , Sun4c, go for NetBSD, it really shines. = 32 Mb , Sun4m, go for Debian, it rocks. 16-32 Mb, toss a coin... Do you mean: = 16 Mb _AND_ Sun4c, go for... or = 16 Mb _OR_ Sun4c, go for..., etc? I am interested because I have some Sun4c machines with 16/32 Mb of RAM, and I would like to revive them. Cheers Sabino
Re: Boot procedure on old SPARCs
Sabino Maggi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: How much memory do these machines have ? My advice is: = 16 Mb , Sun4c, go for NetBSD, it really shines. = 32 Mb , Sun4m, go for Debian, it rocks. 16-32 Mb, toss a coin... Do you mean: = 16 Mb _AND_ Sun4c, go for... or= 16 Mb _OR_ Sun4c, go for..., etc? I am interested because I have some Sun4c machines with 16/32 Mb of RAM, and I would like to revive them. Sorry, my mesg was a bit unclear.. Generally, for a low memory machine (like 16Mb) AND especially the Sun4c arch. I've noticed that NetBSD runs much smoother. For one thing, the VM system in the linux/sparc kernel 2.4 does not perform very well on the Sun4c (IIRC because of no mmu..). And another thing is that Debian's dpkg/dselect database and packaging system really eats memory and cpu. Of course, you don't have to install/upgrade all the time and you can download packages and install them manually, but, well... Which way to go probably depends on the intended use of the machines. For non-interactive stuff and the like the difference in speed might be negligeable. We have both Debian and NetBSD boxes here and they really rock in their intended use. Debian with lots of apps in powerful SS5's and NetBSD on the memory starved ELC serving static web pages and acting as a master backup machine ;) HTH, -- Ragga
Re: Boot procedure on old SPARCs
I have never had any success trying to get an older Sun to work with bootp. RARP and TFTP is the only way I've had success. However, I have installed both Redhat and Debian on an SS5 with 64MB and a SS20 with 96MB this way. Just remember that the filename they use to boot from is the IP address in hex (no dots or 0x) followed by a . and the architecture, i.e. SUN4[CDM]. One of my boot files looks like D888B0FD.SUN4M. -- Sean R. Lynch KG6CVV [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.literati.org/~seanl/ Jabber:[EMAIL PROTECTED] AIM:geekboi MSN:kg6cvv Yahoo:kg6cvv ICQ:10107887 GPG key fingerprint = 540F 19F2 C416 847F 4832 B346 9AF3 E455 6E73 B691 Bay Area Anarcho-Capitalists: http://www.literati.org/mailman/listinfo/baac pgpZQZBaacv5I.pgp Description: PGP signature
Boot procedure on old SPARCs
Dear Linux'ers, I have some old diskless SPARCstations of 4c and 4m series (SLC, LC, LX). I want to re-animate them as Desktopsthem using Debian. The Boot/Rootserver is a Sun E450 running Solaris8. I want to set up a DHCP server for easier maintainance of my computers. And here are my questions: 1. Can anybody send me a pointer to document/URL where is explained the Old SPARCstation diskless boot sequence in detail (explanations here are also welcome ;-) 2. Is it enough to install the Solaris8 DHCP Server Software on the E450 or do I need any of rarpd and tftpd? 3. Are the Bootproms of the old SPARCs able to generate bootp requests and to process bootp replies or is RARP/TFTP the only way to map MAC to IP address for these machines and boot 'em up? Thanks a lot for your time Guenter -- Dipl.-Ing. Guenter Millahn Brandenburg University of Technology Systems, Network DB AdminCS Dept / DB IS Research Group Voice: +49 (355) 69-2272/2700 P.O. Box: 10 13 44 Fax: +49 (355) 69-2766 D-03013 Cottbus GERMANY The real world is still far away from be led ad absurdum by the virtual one.(Hal Faber, newsreel What happened, what will be, 08/13/2000)
Re: Boot procedure on old SPARCs
On Tue, Feb 20, 2001 at 07:33:28PM +0100, Guenter Millahn wrote: Dear Linux'ers, I have some old diskless SPARCstations of 4c and 4m series (SLC, LC, LX). I want to re-animate them as Desktopsthem using Debian. The Boot/Rootserver is a Sun E450 running Solaris8. I want to set up a DHCP server for easier maintainance of my computers. And here are my questions: 1. Can anybody send me a pointer to document/URL where is explained the Old SPARCstation diskless boot sequence in detail (explanations here are also welcome ;-) 2. Is it enough to install the Solaris8 DHCP Server Software on the E450 or do I need any of rarpd and tftpd? 3. Are the Bootproms of the old SPARCs able to generate bootp requests and to process bootp replies or is RARP/TFTP the only way to map MAC to IP address for these machines and boot 'em up? All of this is explained in the Debian SPARC install docs. Basically the net boot for sparcs involves initially sending a RARP request to get the IP, then dowloading an image or kernel via tftp. The downloaded file can be either a simple linux kernel image, in which case you will need to also pass NFS root options (also explained in the install docs), or it can be a tilo image (a kernel image and initrd image together). The tftpboot images provided in the disks-sparc directory are tilo images, and you can use them to install a diskless client (which will create and configure the base system onto an NFS root partition). Again, all of this is explained in detail in the install docs here: ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/potato/main/disks-sparc/ There you will find all of the required images and docs to get you going. -- ---===-=-==-=---==-=-- / Ben Collins -- ...on that fantastic voyage... -- Debian GNU/Linux \ ` [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ' `---=--===-=-=-=-===-==---=--=---'
Re: Boot procedure on old SPARCs
On Tue, 20 Feb 2001, Guenter Millahn wrote: I want to re-animate them as Desktopsthem using Debian. The Boot/Rootserver is a Sun E450 running Solaris8. I want to set up a DHCP server for easier maintainance of my computers. And here are my questions: 1. Can anybody send me a pointer to document/URL where is explained the Old SPARCstation diskless boot sequence in detail (explanations here are also welcome ;-) 2. Is it enough to install the Solaris8 DHCP Server Software on the E450 or do I need any of rarpd and tftpd? 3. Are the Bootproms of the old SPARCs able to generate bootp requests and to process bootp replies or is RARP/TFTP the only way to map MAC to IP address for these machines and boot 'em up? Thanks a lot for your time Guenter -- [-] So, you're a Ph.D. Just don't touch anything.
Re: Boot procedure on old SPARCs
On Tue, 20 Feb 2001, Guenter Millahn wrote: [sorry for the previous one] 1. Can anybody send me a pointer to document/URL where is explained the Old SPARCstation diskless boot sequence in detail (explanations here are also welcome ;-) there used to be one at http://geog.ubc.ca/s_linux.html. hm it apparently points to ultralinux.org now, and you find what you need at http://www.ultralinux.org/faq.html, section `booting'. i did use an lx following this info. 3. Are the Bootproms of the old SPARCs able to generate bootp requests and to process bootp replies or is RARP/TFTP the only way to map MAC to IP address for these machines and boot 'em up? iirc (and i may as well not as it was several years ago..) using lx rarp was the way to go. -- [-] So, you're a Ph.D. Just don't touch anything.
Re: Boot procedure on old SPARCs
Ben Collins [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Feb 20, 2001 at 07:33:28PM +0100, Guenter Millahn wrote: Dear Linux'ers, I have some old diskless SPARCstations of 4c and 4m series (SLC, LC, LX). I want to re-animate them as Desktopsthem using Debian. How much memory do these machines have ? My advice is: = 16 Mb , Sun4c, go for NetBSD, it really shines. = 32 Mb , Sun4m, go for Debian, it rocks. 16-32 Mb, toss a coin... The Boot/Rootserver is a Sun E450 running Solaris8. I want to set up a DHCP server for easier maintainance of my computers. And here are my questions: 1. Can anybody send me a pointer to document/URL where is explained the Old SPARCstation diskless boot sequence in detail (explanations here are also welcome ;-) Check your nearest debian mirror, in main/disks-sparc for instructions. That should get you going. 2. Is it enough to install the Solaris8 DHCP Server Software on the E450 or do I need any of rarpd and tftpd? Hmm... don't know about the Solaris dhcpd. Is it not possible to use (or borrow) an IP address during the installation ? That's because to netboot you will initially need to have rarpd running on a machine on the same segment that answers the requests from the sparc. Tftp is then needed to transfer the kernel or the ramdisk image. ALSO NOTE: at the sparc boot prompt you'll have to specify the IP address (and optionally the NFS-root mount), because the bootkernel in 2.2r2 doesn't have autoconfig etc. built in!!! I.E. like: boot net IP=123.223.333.443 3. Are the Bootproms of the old SPARCs able to generate bootp requests and to process bootp replies or is RARP/TFTP the only way to map MAC to IP address for these machines and boot 'em up? That's what I believe (iow, rarp/tftp), however, some Sun guru might be able to clarify ;) HTH, and good luck. -- Ragga
Various I/O problems with Sparcs
Hello, I am having various problems getting linux to work correctly on two of my SPARCs. I have 2, one is a SparcStation2 and the other is a Sparc IPX. On the SparcStation2, both the debian rescue disk and the cd refuse to boot a 2.1 GB seagate SCSI disk I installed on it. Probe-scsi on the prom detects the drive and Solaris 2.7 can also run on it. How do I get debian to detect the disk, are their any silo boot parameters I can set to make it detect the drive for instance? My second problem is on my Sparc IPX. Linux installs and runs fine, and even X is up and running, but the keyboard and mouse behave strangly. They are both Type 4. The keyboard sometimes outputs the wrong key seemingly randomly, such as, I push / and it outputs a 'y'. In X, the mouse moves on its own when a program swaps to the disk or when a mouse button is pushed. Has anyone else had these problems, or should I consider it a defect of this ancient machine? I have install both redhat and debian (my preference) and both seem to suffer the same defect. I have tried several keyboards and serveral mice. I have not installed solaris for reference.
Re: Sparcs
On 1 Jan 1998, Mark W. Eichin wrote: So at least randomly selected SunOS programs work :-) I've also run xdpyinfo and xlogo (an old build of X11R6 done under SunOS) though xterm didnt' quite work, probably because I needed another symlink somewhere... Just point /ust/gnemul/sunos at the mount point of the SunOS disks and you should be fine. Sparclinux will force a lookup under /usr/gnemul/sunos transparently before trying to lookup the filename starting at / as usual. Tom -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
RE: Sparcs
On Fri, 2 Jan 1998, Mike Taylor Vax/Unix Operations wrote: Ian, There was an article titled Setting up a SPARCstation, in the October 1997 issue of Linux Journal that should help answer your question. The article can be found on the ssc web site at http://www.ssc.com/lj/issue42/2107.html. I hope it helps you, or anyone looking to setup linux on a sparc. I found this article to be excellent. I emailed the author and he was very helpful in finding more info and giving further detail. -- Douglas F. Elznic [EMAIL PROTECTED] If they give you lined paper, write the other way. Freedom through Electronic Resistance -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Re: Sparcs
available on a name-brand workstation, such as a SPARC. Assuming you're using Linux, do commercial SPARC software packages work with Linux? Well, sunos ones appear to; on my SS1+ here, which is booting sparc-linux off of a zip disk, but still mounts the original SunOS 4.1.3 disks under /sd/c/#, I made a symlink from /usr/lib/ld.so - the sunos copy, and then: studentloan+% ( setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /sd/c/1/lib:/sd/c/7/lib:/sd/c/7/5lib ; /sd/c/7/bin/uname -a ) Linux studentl 2.0.32 #1 Mon D sparc So at least randomly selected SunOS programs work :-) I've also run xdpyinfo and xlogo (an old build of X11R6 done under SunOS) though xterm didnt' quite work, probably because I needed another symlink somewhere... -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Sparcs
Hi- I am looking to buy a used Sparc and I know that there are important differences between older models. What are the models to stay away from and which ones are ideal? How do I tell them apart? Appreciate any information or direction! Thanks in advance, Ian _ .__. __ __ | | .__. .__..__. .__. .__. \ \/ / | | | | | \ | | | | | | \ \ / / | | | | | |\ \ | | | | | | \ \/ / | |__ | | | | \ \| | | |_| | / / \ \ |__|__.|__| |__| \| |___| /_/ \_\ * DEBIAN GNU/Linux * -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
