Installation problems SPARCstation 5
Hello everyone. I'm rather new to Linux and SPARC in general, and I've
spent a while searching documentation everywhere I can to try and
find someone who has had a similar problem, but I just can't find any.
I know its generally discouraged to post requests for help without very
explicit information, but I can't figure out even how to get more
information about what is going wrong so I'll just try and describe it as
best I can.
A friend of a friend of mine was throwing away some old computer
stuff, and I managed to snag a free SPARCstation 5 from him. All it
had with it was some general documentation unrelated to whatever
specific architecture this computer was running, so I'm kind of out of
luck on technical specifications. It was pre-installed with Solaris, and
I've never used Solaris before and I really wanted rather to try and get a
Linux variant installed on it. I have had some limited experiences
screwing around with KNOPPIX / OpenWRT / Fedora Core 3 / Ubuntu
so I felt somewhat comfortable. I am however, still very new to Linux
and don't understand a lot of things - partly why I wanted to have an
extra computer around with Linux on it to improve my knowledge.
I went and got a Debian netinstall SPARC CD-Rom to put onto this
computer, but I'm having some problems finishing the install, and with
the install in general. When I booted up off the CD I did so with the
default boot, no special parameters invoked from the PROM boot
console. A bunch of text scrolled by indicating that the install was
beginning, and I noticed that there were a couple of errors popping up.
This appeared about 6-7 times in a row, and then the install would
just continue past it.
--
Setting up general console font... set_kernel_font: Function not
implemented. Failed
--
I thought everything was going to be dandy until I got to the language
selection screen. The first thing that looked weird (I've never done a
Debian install before though so I'm not sure if it was supposed to be
weird) was that the 'borders' for the text selection box were made
entirely out of weird characters. The tops were lined with
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ and the sides with small 3's. I figured this might be
just ASCII art until I started trying to select an option.
When I pressed the up or down button, instead of highlighting an
option, all the options remained unhighlighted and I saw a brief semi-
flash somewhere near the highlighting should have been. It's difficult
to describe because it looks rather odd, but its as if the place where
the highlighting should occur has been fragmented and spread out
sideways. Additionally, it only appears for a fraction of a second. Also,
somewhat related to this, the same effect occurs as some kind a kind
of a scan line that moves slowly down the screen before any text
screen appears. Like, I'll be ready to load the next screen of an
installation step, but before anything appears, this flashing blocky line
will scroll from the top to the bottom, dissapear, and then the text will
appear. Every time I press the up or down arrow that was what
appeared, except it didn't scan up or down - just flashed once.
I managed to get through the install by scrolling up to the uppermost
option, and then counting the number of down arrows I pressed til I
reached the option I wanted. It took a long time because I made some
mistakes, but I eventually was able to install everything successfully,
and DHCP worked fine.
Naturally of course, after installing I go to reboot. I thought that maybe
there was some pecularity with the install relating to the X-Windows
system or however video is being displayed, because I know my video
chip is 24-bit and it should be using the XSun24 X server, but I don't
know how to select or configure that.
When it finishes going through a long block of text and configurations
on the reboot, it finally gets to a big notice that basically says
"Welcome to your new Debian system.. here is a walkthrough, etc. etc.
" along with a button to hit OK. The only problem is: I can't hit the <Ok>
button. Pressing enter no longer works any more, and moving around
the arrow keys trying to select something or to highlight an option
doesn't work either. The borders are still all covered with
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ's and its the same weird looking video as the initial
install.
I went looking through all the docs I could find again to figure out any
possible way of booting up differently, or installing differently, but all I
could find was this:
Because of display problems on some systems, framebuffer
support is disabled by default for SPARC. This can result in ugly
display on systems that do properly support the framebuffer, like
those with ATI graphical cards. If you see display problems in the
installer, you can try booting with parameter debian-installer/
framebuffer=true.
I have no idea how to boot up with that parameter, and I was thinking
of trying to reinstall and typing that in before I booted up off the
CDROM, but now when I try to boot off the CDROM it just automatically
takes me to my hard drive installation.
I have no clue what to do, or how to fix this. SPARC support on the
internet seems about 20 years old and incredibly limited, so I'm really
just kinda lost here. Debian was the only Linux distro I could find that I
could even download a SPARC install for, every other one on
ultralinux.org seems to have stopped being supported or just plain
dissapeared.
I'm sorry I haven't included more information with this post, but the
truth is I just don't know much about this computer or even how to find
out what kind of specs it has. All I have manged to find out is that it's a
SPARCstation 5 (architecture Sun4m) with a 24bit video system.
Help of any kind would be appreciated, even just links to more SPARC
documentation or whatever. I don't care what's on the computer, and
I'll do anything to try and get it to work.
Reply to: