Re: booting to install - GRUB
Hello,
On Fri, 2025-09-19 at 02:09 +0200, Riccardo Mottola wrote:
> I tried booting with the CDROM of the U1, nothing happens, I think it is
> busted (or dirty or who knows...)
> I tried using the CDROM drive of the U2 in the U1 and also in the U2
> (just for tests) and it gets as far as printing GRUB and then hangs.
GRUB probably doesn't work on these very UltraSPARCs, so I'm afraid you
have to pick an older image which still uses SILO.
> I don't know if the old optical drives all wonky or if there is an issue
> booting on these older systems or both.
>
> Fine... alternative solutions. Trusted Netra T1 is currenlty off-duty
> because it needs two module RAM replacement, but 1GB is still plenty for
> an install, cdrom works and Disk Sleds is an easy swap.
> So I start booting and here indeed GRUB comes up, language selection,
> etc etc... but then:
> lqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqu Loading additional components
> tqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqk
> x x
> x 37% x
> x x
> x [ 340.718293] watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 26s!
> [tar:2157]
> [ 364.718292] watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 48s!
> [tar:2157] x
> [ 1444.718281] watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 1054s!
> [tar:2157]
>
> I waited long, but the CD drive LED goes off. I tried two different
> media, even a real CD-R and not CD-RW. Both stuck ad 37%
>
> Can't be a coincidence? even a flakey disc drive would fail in a
> different place on two different media.
>
> Disturbed, I tried the Fire v120 ... different drive, that finally
> completes. Wow. Bad luck or strange issues?
>
> Here I went all with the most default setup, I got this warning:
>
> x The disk has 69369 cylinders, which is greater than the maximum
> of x
> x 65536. x
Yes, this is a warning that you can safely ignore. I think it came because
the /boot partition size was increased recently without checking first whether
this size would work on sun4u systems and/or without adjusting the upper
limit for this warning.
> Maybe some screwed calculation? I just continued... and the system
> booted debian 12 on the Sun Fire 120
No, just a regression in the partitioner. As I said before, I cannot simply
test and fix every configuration all the time as I lack the capacity for
that.
Please keep in mind that we're using a shared codebase and if a maintainer
thinks the change he made on x86_64 will just work on any other architecture,
we will get regressions like these.
> Now the long process of setting it up from the minimal CD started: no
> sshd, no proper keys, no gpg, wrong sources... exhausting.
What installation CD is that? Please always link the ISO so I know what
you're talking about.
> Still, I have a booting system with kernel on the sun Fire V120 - the
> "host installer"
> Linux debian-sparc64 6.1.0-9-sparc64 #1 Debian 6.1.27-1 (2023-05-08)
> sparc64 GNU/Linux
>
> Now I set my sources to unstable and run upgrade. Reboot ... and am in.
> Now time for "dist-upgrade" and see what happens.
>
> Loading Linux 6.16.7+deb14-sparc64 ...
> Loading initial ramdisk ...
>
> Specifically: 6.16.7+deb14-sparc64 #1 Debian 6.16.7-1 (2025-09-11) sparc64
>
> boots to prompt on serial and responds to ssh, so basic is there and no
> crash
> cpu : TI UltraSparc IIe (Hummingbird)
> fpu : UltraSparc IIe integrated FPU
>
>
> Now tomorrow I should be able to test this on Ultra1 and perhaps with
> some luck on Ultra2 and see what happens and also test Adrian's kernels.
FWIW, this is an unpatched kernel. It does not contain any of the recent
fixes, so you're not really testing anything there.
Adrian
--
.''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' : Debian Developer
`. `' Physicist
`- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913
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