Gentoo 2006.1 + Blade1000 didn't work, Ubuntu SPARC works...

varis · n00b Joined: 27 Nov 2004 Posts: 4

Hopefully this helps someone who is not getting Gentoo SPARC running (I
didn't).

The box: Sun Blade 1000
- 2 x 750Mhz USIII
- 1GB RAM
- 18GB FC-AL disk
- Elite3D-m6

I have never succesfully installed Gentoo for SPARC on this box. Every now and
then I have checked whether the newest Gentoo works. Last weekend I tried
2006.1, the same error as always, SILO fails (with both kernels). I have tried
netbooting but without success (iBook as host). I started googling for the SILO
error and for some strange reason I found myself staring at Ubuntu
forums...Ubuntu + SPARC = WTF?

Now I have KDE running on my Blade, seems stable. Here is how I did it:

1. Download Ubuntu SPARC server install CD.

2. Burn to CD, 'boot cdrom', install. This was painless, installer configured
all hardware, including the FCAL disk.

3. Get a Sun Online account. You need to download stuff from Sun.

4. If booting doesn't work, you might want to update OBP. I did this before
installing Ubuntu as the reports of Blade 1000s on Gentoo pages were running
newer OBPs (mine was 4.10.x). So, I don't know if updating OBP had any effect
on Ubuntu installation. Anyway, search for patch 118323-01 at Sun website. This
patch has OBP version 4.16.4. Follow the notes on the patch. I was running
Solaris 10 and I did it the 'boot disk /<image_name>' way.

5. If you were as lucky as I was you should have running Ubuntu system without
X. X binaries are actually available. I used 'apt-cache search' and 'apt-get
install' to grab X packages. You could also use dselect, but frankly, it is an
abomination.

(EDIT: My mistake, it is easier to get the whole desktop/UI blob by just
using aptitude: 'sudo aptitude install ubuntu-desktop')

If you use Elite3D be sure to choose 'sunffb' as display driver, the default
driver proposed by the Xorg setup UI is wrong. In addition, there seems to be
no 'pure' X Window Managers. So, I installed Kde and added 'exec startkde' to
.xinitrc.

If you start X now you will probably get an error. You may have to remove some
'wacom' entries from the default /etc/X11/xorg.conf. And yes, check the
/var/log/Xorg.0.log and install packages as long as it complains about
something specific ;-)

In the end you might get an error, something like signal
11, without any indication on what might be wrong (after loading the Elite3D
driver).

Well, you need to load some firmware to Elite3D. Search for Sun patch id
106114-28. Download the zip-file and grab the file 'afb.ucode'. You will also
need afbinit (download from http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/afbinit
and install with dpkg -i).

Load the ucode:
afbinit /dev/fb0 afb.ucode

Starting the X should work now.

And yes, the fans are blowing at full speed all the time...I need to check this
bbc_i2c stuff.

Cheers,

Varis

gust4voz · Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 9:57 pm Post subject:

In all fairness, you didn't try installing Gentoo AFTER upgrading the OBP didn't you? :-)

It's known to have issues in many scenarios that way.
_________________
Gustavo Zacarias
Gentoo/SPARC monkey

varis · n00b Joined: 27 Nov 2004 Posts: 4

Yes, I did try installing gentoo after upgrading the OBP. No success, got pretty much the
same error as here: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-500473.html (2006.1 cdrom boot error).

gust4voz · Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:37 pm Post subject:

That's pretty odd since it's a silo error and we basically use the same as ubuntu (silo-1.4.13).
Also it's been tested on blade 1000 machines too by a couple of devs and it works.
_________________
Gustavo Zacarias
Gentoo/SPARC monkey

varis · n00b Joined: 27 Nov 2004 Posts: 4

Well, well, Gentoo booted after all...

I remember that after Gentoo boot failed, I put in Ubuntu CD and rebooted and
installed it without problems. Something odd must have happened, perhaps a
proper cold boot was required to let the new OBP "settle"?

gust4voz · Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:16 pm Post subject:

It's possible, though strange.
We've seen issues with linux not wanting to boot if the machine had just run solaris on some boxes (most notably v100, v120, netra x1 or similar ones).
_________________
Gustavo Zacarias
Gentoo/SPARC monkey

recupero · n00b Joined: 25 Jun 2006 Posts: 26

On my Blade1000, 750MHz, Elite3D
I installed the "2617" image with the 2006.1 profile.
My wonders now are if I can replace just the cpu chip instead of the whole module as suggested by Sun. I still have to experiment this.