Re: sparc hardware added to boot-floppies Installation Manual

[Steve Dunham <dunham@cse.msu.edu>]

Adam Di Carlo <adam@onshore.com> writes:

> On 03 Feb 1999 13:07:42 -0500, Steve Dunham <dunham@cse.msu.edu> said:
> > There will not be a sparc64 release of Debian for a long time _but_
> > the "sparc" Debian runs just fine on an Ultra as long as you're
> > using a 64-bit kernel.  The sparc64 kernel does sparc "emulation" -
> > essentially, it can run 32-bit binaries, and handles the 32-bit
> > syscalls appropriately.  This is how the UltraPenguin distribution
> > works.

> So just replace the kernel?  Are we shipping a Sparc 64-bit kernel
> with the Installation Manual?  What do I tell people running SUN4u in
> the Installation Manual?

You'll need to talk to Eric about this too.  I believe that he is
working on a unified tftpboot image.  (One tftpboot image with both
kernels for any system.)

I'll have to see what he plans to do about kernel and module
installation.  I'm assuming that we would have seperate rescue and
driver disks for the Ultra.

As far as the CD is concerned, it will load and boot the correct
kernel on any machine.


Eric, I've come up with the rules file magic to generate both sparc32
and sparc64 kernels from the same source package.  (It generates
kernel-image-2.2.x-sparc64_*, then generates a complete set of
packages for the sparc32 architecture.)


Steve
dunham@cse.msu.edu