Re: Sun Blade 100 installation
Hi David,
I had most success with using only CD1 from the normal distribution and let
the installer copy the remainder via the network. That was using an Ultra
30 not a Blade 100 though.
For the garbled Keyboard, could it be you installed with Kernel 2.6 ? This
is kinda f'd because 2.6 translates the Sun Keyboard into a PC KB mapping.
I had to do the basic installation using 2.4 and before upgrading to 2.6 be
sure you can connect to the machine via the network so you can change the
Keyboard layout remotely. You will find a few postings to this in the
group.
hope this helps for you
regards
Detlef
J. David Blackstone wrote:
>
> I've got a Sun Blade 100 that I would like to install Debian on in any
> way possible. I presume that installing an older version would work as
> I can simply use apt to upgrade.
>
> I've successfully installed Debian before on i386 and PPC using boot
> CDs, network installs, floppies, and even once directly running
> debootstrap to transform an existing system running another distro into
> a Debian system. I still probably don't have a lot of experience that I
> would need to debug and try alternatives when it comes to the Sparc
> installation CD's.
>
> It sounds like TFTP netbooting is the easiest and most common option for
> Sparc installs, but this machine is not in an environment where I have
> enough control to do that. And since the Blade 100 will not boot from
> floppies, I believe my only option is to use a boot CD to boot the
> system in preparation for a network install.
>
> I have tried three boot CD images, but each has problems:
>
> * The sarge RC2 businesscard-sized installer:
>
http://cdimage.debian.org/pub/cdimage-testing/sarge_d-i/sparc/rc2/sarge-sparc-businesscard.iso:
> this boots but cannot mount the root filesystem. The last thing I see is
> a message that says "cramfs: wrong magic" followed by a kernel panic with
> the stated cause being that the root FS cannot be mounted. However, this
> does not seem unexpected, given that the installer ports status page (at
> http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ports-status) states that
> this build is broken due to "missing isofs module on CD." * The sarge
> current build of the businesscard-sized installer:
>
http://cdimage.debian.org/pub/cdimage-testing/daily/sparc/current/sarge-sparc-businesscard.iso:
> Despite the fact that the installer ports status page states that the
> current builds are working, I get the exact same error with this image as
> I do with the other.
> (Note: I would try the netinst CD image, but I have found this same
> problem mentioned in two messages in the list archives, indicating that
> the same problem also exists in that image. The two messages are
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2005/02/msg00249.html and
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2005/02/msg00580.html)
> * The sarge current build mini.iso at
>
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/sarge/main/installer-sparc/current/images/mini.iso:
> this is dated far earlier than the other images, but it does successfully
> boot! However, installation freezes at the first option screen (select
> language). The behavior makes it look like the keyboard is simply not
> working, although there is some corruption in the text-based dialog box on
> the screen (border on the right screwed up) indicating there might be more
> to it than that.
>
> I've mentioned this on debian-boot, but I thought I might get more help
> here.
>
> What can I do to connive an installation of Debian onto this machine?
>
> Thanks,
> J. David
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