Simon Karpen wrote:
On Sun, 17 May 1998, Michael Clark wrote:
I have just received an old Sun Sparc IPX. I am able to boot it and it gets stuck looking for the network connection and nameserver. I have connected an old scsi cdrom, and put in my SuSE boot disk, but it will only look at the hard drive for booting.
First, do a probe-scsi at the prom to see if it can see the disk. Also, a Sun will only boot off of a cd-rom with 512 byte sectors. Most PC cd-rom drives only support 2048-byte sectors.
what is the 'prom'?? do you mean prompt?? I do not have any prompt that I can use. Is there a special key combo to invoke 'prom'??
SuSE, at this point, only runs on Intel. For Linux, you could run Redhat, or maybe Debian. OpenBSD is also supported on Sparc.
I have a few questions
First, how do I boot a cdrom or floppy??
If you have a sun bootable floppy or cd-rom, then just do boot floppy or boot cdrom at the prom monitor.
How can I install SuSE Linux on it??
You don't, at least not until there's a port to the Sparc architecture. (hint hint)
Do I have to compile a kernel on an intel based machine to boot the sparc??
No, you need a sparc compatbile distribution.
Is there a BIOS or CMOS on the sparc that I could modify??
There's a boot prom that's orders of magnitude more sophisticated than a bios. Do you have a keyboard and display, or are you running it headless?
I have a monitor and keyboard. I have not yet gotten a mouse. the system boots up and, similar to linux, goes through the kernel boot messages. I see only a few lines that are familiar to me. It gets locked in a loop looking for the network and nameserver. I do not really want to use the OS that is installed (I do not have any logins or passwords, so I will need to install linux to have any access anyway.) I have only worked with intel hardware, so I am COMPLETELY lost!! Thank you
Simon Karpen karpes@rpi.edu slk@acm.rpi.edu #include <std_disclaimer.h> I don't speak for RPI in any way. "Those that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Ben Franklin
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