Debian Installation on Ultra 30 (was Re: Updated Debian Ports installation images 2021-09-23)
On 9/23/21 3:25 AM, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I have just built and uploaded updated Debian Ports installation images.
> ...
>
> The images can be obtained from [1].
>
> Thanks,
> Adrian
>
>> [1] https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/2021-09-23/
>
Hello,
Thanks for creating the unsupported Debian images!
This is an initial report of an installation of Debian SID using the
sparc64 ISO from the above link on a Sun Ultra 30 workstation.
Based on any responses, I can repeat the installation and capture any
log files that may be relevant (I haven't saved anything yet, but I
don't mind re-installing).
This Ultra 30 has 1.5 GiB of memory and two Seagate ST3146807LC SCSI
disks (/dev/sda and /dev/sdb). I'm using an Acer AL1715 monitor that
supports resolutions of (at least) 1280x1024 and 1024x768. The
framebuffer is TVP4020; the graphics card is a Raptor GFX VGA card.
Previously, I have had working installations of Debian 7.8 (Xfce) and
Debian SID (text only) on this system. I've always used the SILO
bootloader, but I decided to try to get GRUB working. The SILO
installation was from Debian 7.8, and it never gave me any problems,
though the partition size I had chosen long ago during my Debian 7.8
installation for the /boot partition seemed a little large (1 GiB).
Not knowing what the preferred size should be for a GRUB /boot
partition, I decided to let Guided Partioning use its defaults for
/dev/sda. As I recall, the partitioner warned that the number of
cylinders on the disk exceeded the maximum of 65536, but the creation of
filesystems and the rest of the installation proceeded anyway, without
any other noticeable errors.
The layout for /dev/sda is as follows:
# fdisk -l /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 136.73 GiB, 146815737856 bytes, 286749488 sectors
Disk model: ST3146807LC
Geometry: 255 heads, 2 sectors/track, 37965 cylinders
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: sun
Device Start End Sectors Size Id Type Flags
/dev/sda1 0 1000109 1000110 488.3M 1 Boot
/dev/sda2 1000110 284748299 283748190 135.3G 83 Linux native
/dev/sda3 0 286749029 286749030 136.7G 5 Whole disk
/dev/sda4 284748300 286749029 2000730 976.9M 82 Linux swap
-> Question 1: If I don't plan to install Solaris, is it safe to remove
the "Whole disk" partition (/dev/sda3)?
-> Question 2: What is the best size for /boot (/dev/sda1)? After
installation, the /boot partition had only about 57 MB of files.
After installation, at every boot, I see this:
-----
GRUB Loading kernel....
Welcome to GRUB!
error: out of memory.
error: no suitable video mode found.
error: no video mode activated.
-----
Then the GRUB menu is displayed, and I am able to scroll through the
options using the "v" and "^" keys (but not the up and down arrow keys).
After selecting the new Debian SID (or allowing it to be selected by
default), the X login eventually comes up, but it seems to be off the
screen. If I login anyway, the Xfce desktop comes up, but it seems to be
larger than the screen. This problem, which is similar to a problem I
had with Debian 7.8, can probably be fixed with an appropriate xorg.conf
file.
As a backup, I had copied my previous Debian SID root filesystem to my
second disk, which is configured as follows:
# fdisk -l /dev/sdb
Disk /dev/sdb: 136.73 GiB, 146815737856 bytes, 286749488 sectors
Disk model: ST3146807LC
Geometry: 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 17849 cylinders
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: sun
Device Start End Sectors Size Id Type Flags
/dev/sdb1 0 31246424 31246425 14.9G 1 Boot
/dev/sdb2 31246425 35150219 3903795 1.9G 82 Linux swap
/dev/sdb3 0 286744184 286744185 136.7G 5 Whole disk
/dev/sdb4 35150220 286744184 251593965 120G 83 Linux native
My previous Debian SID partition on /dev/sdb1 (with /etc/fstab adjusted
accordingly) showed up as one of the bootable options in the GRUB menu,
but it was not bootable due to an apparent bug in GRUB. Here are the
relevant lines in /boot/grub/grub.cfg:
...
menuentry 'Debian GNU/Linux bookworm/sid (on /dev/sdb1)' --class debian
--class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option
'osprober-gnulinux-simple-1ca6137b-dcb8-4e76-b3c5-794d453723ca' {
insmod part_sun
insmod ext2
set root='hd1,sun1'
if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root
--hint-ieee1275='ieee1275//pci@1f\,4000/scsi@3/disk@1\,0,sun1'
--hint-bios=hd1,sun1 --hint-efi=hd1,sun1 --hint-baremetal=ahci1,sun1
1ca6137b-dcb8-4e76-b3c5-794d453723ca
else
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root
1ca6137b-dcb8-4e76-b3c5-794d453723ca
fi
linux /boot/vmlinux-5.14.0-1-sparc64
root=UUID=052feb55-ef72-4a8a-8f6d-2d63390e76ff ro quiet
initrd /boot/initrd.img-5.14.0-1-sparc64
}
...
But UUID=052feb55-ef72-4a8a-8f6d-2d63390e76ff doesn't exist.
So this line:
linux /boot/vmlinux-5.14.0-1-sparc64
root=UUID=052feb55-ef72-4a8a-8f6d-2d63390e76ff ro quiet
should be:
linux /boot/vmlinux-5.14.0-1-sparc64
root=UUID=1ca6137b-dcb8-4e76-b3c5-794d453723ca ro quiet
as shown by blkid:
# blkid /dev/sdb1
/dev/sdb1: UUID="1ca6137b-dcb8-4e76-b3c5-794d453723ca" BLOCK_SIZE="4096"
TYPE="ext3" PTTYPE="sun"
After making that change, I'm able to boot into my backup Debian SID
installation.
So my choices at this point are to return to SILO or follow through with
a bug report for GRUB (I would need help submitting upstream bug reports
for GRUB).
-> Question 3: If I return to SILO, is there anything special about
/dev/sda1 other than it needing to be ext2? For example, are there any
special flags or other attributes needed for that partition? Is
/dev/sda1 also ext2 when using GRUB or can it be ext3 or ext4?
Thanks again to everyone who has worked to keep Debian working on these
old, unsupported platforms.
-Stan Johnson
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