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How to boot any sparc (32) installer? (2005.1/ 2006?)
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chris_andrew
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 8:08 pm    Post subject: How to boot any sparc (32) installer? (2005.1/ 2006?) Reply with quote

Hi,

##Dons flame retardant suit.

I know that sparc (32) isn't supported anymore, and am happy that that is not going to change in the near future.

I want to try to install the 2006.1 release, as I believe that that was the last release to support 32bit machines.

I have found the 2006.1 files on various mirrors, but can't remember how I initially boot from a CD to get the install started. Was there an ISO somewhere that I could burn?

I'd really appreciate any help, and hope I'm not causing offence by asking about unsupported hardware.

Many thanks,

Chris.


Last edited by chris_andrew on Wed Sep 26, 2007 9:07 pm; edited 1 time in total
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pianosaurus
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 10:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You seem to want the /releases/<arch>/2006.1/livecd/<something>.iso from a mirror. That's the bootable CD. I don't know if you'll find it anywhere, but good luck. I suppose <arch> is sparc, but I don't know for sure.

Addendum: Or installcd instead of livecd. Just noticed the sparc64 at least don't have a livecd.
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chris_andrew
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 11:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

That sounds like exactly what I need, but I can't find one. I'll give Google a go.

Cheers,

Chris.
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chris_andrew
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 11:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I found reference to this ISO:

install-sparc-universal-2005.1-r1.iso

but all I can find are stages, not this or similar images.

If anyone ever burned one to a CD, I'd appreciate it if I could get a copy.

Cheers,

Chris.
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chris_andrew
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 8:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Still looking for any ISO that will boot an a 32 bit sparc. Any help appreciated, no matter how old the release.

Thanks,

Chris.
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spam_
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 9:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I know how hard to get these ISOs are, so I've put up all the useful files I can find here:

http://www.ele.uri.edu/~simoneau/gentoo/sparc32/

The isos are rips from burned CDs I had, so the filename may not be 100% identical to the original. I may be able to dig up a 2006.1 iso at work, if I find it I'll mirror that too.
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chris_andrew
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 9:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

spam_,

I'll check out your link, but it sounds perfect. I guess 2006.1 would be great, but only if it still supported sparc (32).

Hopefully I'll burn an image tonight and see how I get on.

Many thanks.

Cheers,

Chris.

## UPDATE: Well the 2005.0 image booted :-). Be great to find the last image that supported sparc (32), will then find the install documentation, and try to decide which stage to use. I remember stage 1 taking a long time. Also be interesting to see what Gentoo thinks of my 2 processors. I suspect it will only use 1.

Cheers, again.
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spam_
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 4:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Also be interesting to see what Gentoo thinks of my 2 processors. I suspect it will only use 1.


If you run an SMP kernel, you'll get full use of both. My SS20 2xSM51 runs a 2.6 SMP kernel with no issues (2.6.22_rc3 or something IIRC). As for the actual install, I'd start with a stage3, then emerge -e system after you have it booting.
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chris_andrew
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 6:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the advice. Just going to wait for a later image (sparc32) before I start the install, so if anyone knows of one, I'd appreciate it.

emerge -e ?

Thanks,

Chris.
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spam_
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 8:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
emerge -e ?


emerge -e will pretend that nothing has been installed when building the dependency tree. "emerge -e system" means "re-install all system packages, including the toolchain, from scratch", which is essentially what a stage1 does. You go from zero to a booting system faster by going from stage3 -> kernel -> booting system -> rebuild, compared to a stage1 where you can't boot the system for a while.

I wouldn't bother waiting for a later image, they are all out of date to some degree. The version of the install cd really doesn't make any difference, only the version of the stage tarball has any real effect. If you work through the upgrades completely you should be fine.
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chris_andrew
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 2:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just un-TARing my stage 3.

Thanks for your help.

BTW, I have 2x2.1Gb drives. On my (unsupported) sparc (32), my / partition is limited to 1Gb (I believe).

I got around this by doing the following, is this a good partitioning set-up?

sda1 /var (1.5Gb)
sda2 /swap (500ish Mb)

sdb1 / (250Mb)
sdb2 /usr (1.8ish Gb)

My Sun boots from sdb first.

Cheers,

Chris.

BTW#2 Using the 2005.0 installcd, and the 2006.1 stage 3. My / has just run out of space.
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spam_
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 2:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

chris_andrew wrote:
On my (unsupported) sparc (32), my / partition is limited to 1Gb (I believe).


If you create a seperate /boot at the beginning of the drive with size <1GB, there are no restrictions on the other partitions. It's only because of openboot. I'd create a 32M /boot on the boot disk, use about 128M for swap, the rest for root; on the other disk, maybe another 128M swap and the rest /var.

You might also consider booting off of a software raid0 for a 4gb single partition. It's fairly easy to do; one sparc-related gotcha is that the raid partitions cannot start on cylinder 0 otherwise the sun disklabel will be corrupted. Just remember to compile md and raid0 support directly into your kernel so that it can auto-mount the raid on startup; also make sure to mark the partitions as type 0xfd.
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chris_andrew
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 6:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just started
Code:
emerge --sync
on the install.

Is it too late to do the
Code:
emerge -e
, or do I do that, elsewhere?

Thanks,

Chris.
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spam_
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 6:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

chris_andrew wrote:
Just started
Code:
emerge --sync
on the install.

Is it too late to do the
Code:
emerge -e
, or do I do that, elsewhere?

Thanks,

Chris.


You do that after you've installed the kernel and rebooted off of the disk.
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chris_andrew
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 7:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Phew, thanks!

Hope I get that far. I have a tendency of screwing-up /etc/fstab, and not being able to boot.

Cheers,

Chris.
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chris_andrew
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 12:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's been a while, but I'm about to try to get Gentoo on a 32 bit sparc. The box is sittinghere and it really wants to run GNU/Linux!

Cheers,

Chris.
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