2007.0 fails from boot cdrom with V880

pr0ject42 · n00b Joined: 25 Jan 2008 Posts: 3

I searched around and didn't find anything that helps me.

This is my first stab at Gentoo, however I'm no stranger to linux.

I had OpenBSD 4.2 running on this V880, but decided I actually want to take advantage of all of the CPUs it has.

So from the boot prompt, I enter 2617 and all seems ok, and gets past the looming "Booting linux..."

It then spits out a line that reads something like
... Calling: free_all_bootmem()

Then the screen blanks and the cursor scrolls down it a few times then it seems to reset the fb and displays more text, having to do with the video card:

Console: switching to mono PROM 80x34
Ream Time Clock Driver v1.12ac
atyfb: 3D RAGE XL (Mach64 GR, PCI-33) [0x4752 rev 0x27]
atyfb: 8M SGRAM (1:1) 29.498928 MHz XTAL, 230 MHz PLL, 83 MHz MCLK 63 MHz XCC4

Now that last line may have some typos in it, my handwriting was a little poor, but then the whole thing just hangs there and doesn't even respond to "stop a"

I tried passing in a KERNEL parameter for the resolution, thinking maybe the auto-probing was causing the server to hang, but it seems not.

I pulled every card out of the thing except the video card in effort to eliminate any variables.

Any help would be super awesome, as I saw someone got a V880 running with Gentoo, and I would really really like Linux on this thing. Thanks!!

blu3bird · Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 3:12 pm Post subject:

The 2007.0 install cd has two kernels on it, 2.6.17 and 2.6.20. When I installed Gentoo on my Blade 1000(it also has a 3D Rage XL, sun calls it PGX64) I got the same result when booting 2617, but 2620(bootet with param scsi_mod.scan=sync) worked perfectly.

It's probably a bug in the 2.6.17 kernel. I didn't investigate it further since it runs fine right now using 2.6.23.

Another solution would be to install over serial console.
_________________
Black Holes are created when God divides by zero!

pr0ject42 · n00b Joined: 25 Jan 2008 Posts: 3

I tried the 2.6.20 kernel and the whole thing froze. It has that Qlogic SCSI controller that is mentioned in the sticky at the top of the forum that is said to be incompatable with the 2620 kernel image.

I guess trying serial console it is, and pulling the video card. This V880 is getting to be more of a pain than it is worth. Would it be worth it to try a different PCI video card instead?

You have to pardon my total ignorance with SUN hardware, but can I slap any old PCI video card in there?

blu3bird · Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 8:05 pm Post subject:

pr0ject42 · n00b Joined: 25 Jan 2008 Posts: 3

Bad ass dood, thank you. I'll check the 2.6.20 workaround first and see how that goes. If it fails, I'll try a different video card.

Thank you very much! I'll write back with my results!

leonardosam · Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 8:09 pm Post subject: Bad luck

I'm trying to do the same but I never get past the "Booting Linux..." line. It is a SunFire V880 and the Gentoo distribution is the 2007.0.

Has anyone successfully installed Gentoo on this "thing?"

Thanks,

leonardosam · Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 6:04 pm Post subject: Go OpenBSD

Nevermind. I decided to go OpenBSD. The baby is running smooth.