Ultra 10 install problem

sthomas · n00b Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 1

Hi.

I have an install problem on an Ultra10. It may well be the same as Mrwkeichi's ...

The hardware is fine: a prior Debian installation works and all achievable obdiag tests passed.
I am working from ttyb. Like many, I do not have a suitable serial lead for ttya.

(1)
When the system boots to "Starting local ..." no prompt is displayed, though I can reset with the front switch.
Has someone forgotten to put a getty on ttyb (ttyS1, presumably) ?

(2)
During the boot, a large number of spaces are printed at one point, with 3 columns on the far right (on my emulated VT102 anyway). This is merely recorded as a mass of whitespace in the minicom capture included below.

This has been tried with and without a Sun keyboard and mouse attached.
As it happens, I also have a gargantuan Sun monitor. Trying the same with the default env (input-device=keyboard,output-device=screen) produces a similar behaviour.

(3)
At the "whitespace" point mentioned in (2) the cursor runs across and down the screen. A little bit of the boot information appears including "Console:Switching to mono PROM 80x34 " as in Mrwkeichi's post. The cursor continues to scoot across the screen then eventually stops. Activity on the cdrom continues - I expect a boot to "Starting local ..." is taking place - but the screen never changes and the keyboard is unresposive. Again, a hard reset from the front switch is possible.

Ideally, I could do with a quick workaround for this problem - say a week! If I bought a serial lead for ttya (DB25 male to DB9 female) would I be able to continue? I was going to buy a (MiniDIN8 to DB9 female) for another job anyhow.

Regards,
Steve

This is my minicom.cap when using ttyb:

ezod · n00b Joined: 05 Nov 2007 Posts: 34 Location: Windsor

I successfully use the serial console via minicom on my U10's ttyS0 infrequently with a DB9-DB25 converter, some gender-benders, and a homebrew null-modem cable. So long as you get the pins right (and they're standard), it works just fine.

Here's my /etc/minicom/minirc.ultra10 in case it helps anything:

billr · n00b Joined: 13 Jul 2008 Posts: 2

I just did an Ultra 10 install of 2008.0 and saw similar issues. Printing all the spaces appears to be the way it clears the dumb console framebuffer. I also saw the switching console message. This appears to occur when it tries to switch to the kernel framebuffer support, rather than using the prom for console output. I have an ATI based graphics card I use in the system and it would hang at that same point. Something about my card is incompatible with the framebuffer code. Once I switched to another graphics card with no kernel framebuffer support it booted all the way up on the video console.

During the install, when configuring and building the kernel I turned off framebuffer support - otherwise the same thing would happen.

This may or may not be your exact problem, but it could be a clue.