Problem installating on SunBlade 1000 from 2005.1 CD

timothytsai · n00b Joined: 06 Jan 2006 Posts: 3

I have a SunBlade 1000, with dual 900MHz UltraSparc III+, running OBP 4.16.4. I currently have Solaris 10 running on the machine and would like to dual boot Gentoo. I have downloaded, verified the md5sum, and burnt the install-sparc64-universal-2005.1.iso CD. However, I get the following errors after using the CD.

First, doing "boot cdrom" followed by "gentoo-2.4" leads to a MMU error

Booting from cdrom: install-sparc64-universal-2005.1.iso:

> boot cdrom
Boot device: /pci@8,700000/scsi@6/disk@6,0:f File and args:
SILO
// Welcome to Gentoo SPARC Linux //
// Version 2005.1 //
boot: gentoo-2.4
Loading initial ramdisk....
ERROR: /pakcages/deblocker: Last Trap: Fast Data Access MMU Miss

Even Stop-A doesn't work, so I cycle power. Then I tried booting up the kernel directly with "boot cdrom" following by "/boot/gentoo-2.4 root=/dev/ram0". But that results in a kernel panic, which also locks the machine and requires a power cycle.

[cycle power]
> boot cdrom
Boot device: /pci@8,700000/scsi@6/disk@6,0:f File and args:
SILO
// Welcome to Gentoo SPARC Linux //
// Version 2005.1 //
boot: /boot/gentoo-2.4 root=/dev/ram0
...
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
IP: routing cache hash table of 16384 buckets, 256Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 262144 bind 65536)
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for LInux NET4.0.
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 01:00
Press L1-A to return to the boot prom

[cycle power]

Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong? I've tried scouring the forums and googling for insights. Seems like there might be a problem with SunBlades. Is there something else that I should try?

Thanks for any help!

Tim

Ferris · Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 1:10 pm Post subject:

SB1000 is fine for Gentoo --- I am writing this on SB1000(1x900,1x750)-SMP. That said, for the initial install I had great difficulty making a CD which would boot and finally resorted to a netboot install. (One suggestion is always that you burn the CD at lowest possible speed; doing that somehow often cures this sort of problem.)

However, that was not from a 5000.1 CD. There might be issues with SB1000/5000.1 that I am unaware of; others might have insight into that. It would probably be worth your time to ask about it on the #gentoo-sparc IRC channel if you can.

(I know of at least two SB1000-SMP systems happily running Gentoo, and there are other SunBlade systems running it, too.)

timothytsai · n00b Joined: 06 Jan 2006 Posts: 3

Thanks for the suggestions. I have tried reburning the CD at 4x (that was the slowest my software supports) and then verified the burn. Unfortunately, I still get the exact same behavior.

I suppose I could try the netboot install, but I've never done that before. Is there a tutorial that walks through all the steps of doing that?

Thanks,

Tim

tiketti · n00b Joined: 29 Apr 2003 Posts: 32 Location: Finland

What PCI cards do you have installed in your SB1000? And most of all, which PCI slots are occupied by those cards?

I found strange behaviour on my SB1000:

When PGX64 is installed on PCI Slot #1, both 2005.1 and 2005.1-r1 CDs die with unsupported trap error at SCSI subsystem init.

But when I move the PGX64 to PCI Slot #4, Boths installation CDs can boot up the kernel just fine.

Maybe your SB1000 is as picky of PCI cards as mine?

p.s. Solaris10 runs on my SB1000 just fine no matter to which PCI slot PGX64 is installed
_________________
Gentoo on x86, sparc, alpha, amd64, embedded

timothytsai · n00b Joined: 06 Jan 2006 Posts: 3

I'm not sure which video card is in my SB1000. However, the video card is already in the PCI4 slot. I don't have a screwdriver in the office, but I will try to move the card around to see if that makes a difference. However, if that truly makes a difference, then something goofy is going on.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestion.

Tim