Re: Sun hardware

[Thomas Duffy <Thomas.Duffy.99@alumni.brown.edu>]

On Wed, 2002-03-06 at 17:19, Paul DeHerrera wrote:
> Will debian work with my Sun Enterprise 4500 hardware?  It has 8 processors,
> 16GB of RAM and 8ea D1000 StorEdge disk arrays.  If debian will work, what
> is the latest debian release (or kernel version) and how do I purchase it?

It will work with some caveats.  First off, Debian stable (aka potato
has no chance of working.  Secondly, the installer for woody will not
work as the serial driver is busted on any kernel < latest vger Dave
Miller tree (and even then, you may find serial weirdness).  So, you
will need to install it on the root disk either using a different
supported machine (and then move the disk over), or netboot the machine
with an nfs root (using the very latest 2.4.18 vger kernel as you will
need a serial console that works), format the drive manually, and copy
the root over.

And I don't think you can purchase debian for sparc64 anywhere.  You
will need to just dl it off of the web.

If you have never done netboots, kernel builds, and such before, you are
in for a lot of FAQ and HOWTO reading, but it /is/ possible to get
debian woody on a 4500.  AFAIK, no other distro will work out of the box
on a 4500 either...

-tduffy

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