re: Stall on debian sparc installation with version 2.0.35
On Wed, 3 Mar 1999, Lance wrote:
> Still looking for a response.... anyone? please?
Sorry if you haven't heard from anyone; I guess that few of us are so
fortunate as to have a machine with four processors to test :-)
Here's something I've noticed: When I boot the 2.0.35 kernel with a
serial console (a DEC terminal or a minicom session on another Linux box,
with no difference) even from the installation already on the HD, the
output to the terminal screen stops cold after the "freeing unused kernel
memory" line. The machine continues to boot, but none of the messages are
sent to the terminal any more, which naturally would make installation
unusually difficult. (If I let it boot from the disk, I can log on over
the network as usual, although I get hundreds of log messages complaining
about the lack of a serial port to write messages to, and subsequent
respawning, but, then, I haven't yet configured my serial ports.)
The good news: the new installation images seem to work over the serial
port just fine, and you have your choice of two (2.0.35 and 2.2.1). I've
just tried booting up with both of them, although I haven't gone through
the whole installation process. Switching from the installation menu to a
shell, which is usually done with Alt-F2, is available with a menu option;
you'll need to scroll down quite a bit to find it. The 2.2.1 image is
available from Eric D's site
(ftp://lix.polytechnique.fr/pub/Linux/debian/sparc/exp/disks-sparc), and I
believe that the current 2.0.35 can be found there as well (in "current").
If you try the 2.2.1 image, you'll also need the 2.2.1 versions of the
resc1440 and drv1440 "disks", as well as the base2_1.tgz.2.1.8-sparc
package. The installation images which I found to work were named
tftpboot.img.2.1.8-sparc and tftpboot-2.2.1.img.2.1.8.1-sparc; there might
even be a more recent version of the "regular" (non-2.2.1) image by now.
>
> One addition, can anyone let me know the ftp full path to the version of Debian linux for
> SPARC that I should be attempting to use here? I don't mind trouble shooting and/or
> debugging on behalf of the group.
>
Most of the Debian mirror sites also have the sparc port; from the Debian
homepage (www.debian.org) look under the "Download by ftp" link and the
"mirrors", find a mirror near you, and look for the slink distribution.
There should be directories for sparc disks and sparc binaries, unless
it's a smaller site which carries only the i386 versions.
Whether you will or won't have any other problems with an installation on
your machine remains to be seen; I don't recall having seen any reports
at all about the particular model you have. I'm sure that several of the
fellows on the mailing list will be quite interested to hear about your
experiences.
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