Re: Hello

[Pieter-Paul Spiertz <pspiertz@sci.kun.nl>]

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Hi,

in this mail, I'll reply with a few common solutions, just like I used
them myself.


On Mon, 13 Oct 2003, Jonathan Andrews wrote:

> I plugged in and sat down to learn Solaris 2.6  Wow - that was dull ...

That's not really fair. From the Solaris release timeline:

   1997 Solaris 2.6 is available
   1998 Solaris 7 is available
   2000 Solaris 8 is available
   2002 Solaris 9 is available

Solaris 9 comes with GCC and GNOME 1.4, if you want it to.

> I opted to re-partition, created a / partition (most of the disk) and
> swap (what was left).

You should have made /dev/hda3 the 'Whole disk' partition, like for
example at [1]. It's documented at [2], but I think it deserves more
attention. It should be at [3] too.

 [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-sparc/2001/debian-sparc-200110/msg00033.html
 [2] http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/sparc/ch-partitioning.en.html#s6.4
 [3] http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/sparc/ch-partitioning.en.html#s6.3


> X is configured for god knows what, it wont start :-[

In general, 'dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86' starts Debian's specific
configurator. This works fine for Ultra 1's, if you know that what kind
of video card it has. However, with Woody, it does not return working
configurations for Ultra 10s. Using Google, I found a working XF86Config-4
for these in minutes. I've had no keyboard problems.


> I apt-get some stuff.... no sound ...

In my case (Woody), this was a matter of

rmmod soundcore
insmod audio
insmod cs4231

(which is already default for Debian unstable)
and if necessary, playing with audioctl to get the sound out of the boxes
instead of the internal speaker.

> I compile a kernel or 10...

FAQ. You'd better have a known working compiler (GCC 3.2.3) and copy your
config from [4] instead of choosing from the kernel defaults.

 [4] ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-sparc/current/sun4u/kernel-config

> Not being a Debian user before now I have no idea who maintains the apt
> archive, do they need help porting or is it just a slow process to update?

This is a general problem with Debian. Releases do not happen often, so
people accuse the project of shipping ancient software. This is the same
on the i386 platform.

Some of your critic is deserved; I would like some changes to the
installation manual as well. Most of the information is there, however,
never at the place where I'd expect it. The first time that I'd read it,
I was confused at what boot methods I actually needed (I ended up having
a dhcpd, bootp, tftpd and rarpd, while I only needed the latter two.)
Some of the FAQs on this list should be added too, I think.

I'm available to help with this. Whom should I talk with?


Regards,
Pieter-Paul

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