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Installing on a SunBlade 100 using an Intel keyboard?
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Carnildo
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 8:32 pm    Post subject: Installing on a SunBlade 100 using an Intel keyboard? Reply with quote

I just got a SunBlade 100 off of eBay, and I'm trying to install Gentoo (or OpenSolaris, I haven't decided which yet). However, the first step in booting from a CD-ROM is to hit "Stop+A", and the only keyboard I've got is a standard x86 keyboard, which is sadly lacking in the "stop" key department. Is there an alternate way of getting it to boot off a CD?

As an alternative, the computer tries to netboot if left to itself. Is netbooting from an x86 system a practical way of installing?
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blu3bird
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 10:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi,

yes, installing it using netboot is possible and sometimes it's the only option since sun also produces hardware that has neither a floppy nor a cdrom drive
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-sparc-netboot-howto.xml

or you can use a nullmodem cable to install it over a serial console
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-sparc-faq.xml#doc_chap2_sect1
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Carnildo
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 10:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Considering that I've got a network cable but not a null-modem cable, netboot it is.
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Carnildo
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 11:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, it sort of works. I get the following output on the screen, and then it seems to hang:

Code:
Bad magic number in disk label
Can't open disk label package
Bad magic number in disk label
Can't open disk label package
Boot device: net  File and args:
Timeout waiting for ARP/RARP packet
52cc00
Remapping the kernel... done.
Booting Linux...


The relevant sections of the log on the boot server are

Code:
Jul  5 15:58:04 wolf rarpd[13538]: RARP request from 00:03:ba:15:04:2d on if2
Jul  5 22:58:04 wolf in.tftpd[24456]: RRQ from 192.168.0.9 filename C0A80009


Any suggestions?
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Carnildo
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 12:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I got it to work by removing the PCI video card and using the on-board video.
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dago158
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 8:48 am    Post subject: Re: Installing on a SunBlade 100 using an Intel keyboard? Reply with quote

Carnildo wrote:
I just got a SunBlade 100 off of eBay, and I'm trying to install Gentoo (or OpenSolaris, I haven't decided which yet). However, the first step in booting from a CD-ROM is to hit "Stop+A", and the only keyboard I've got is a standard x86 keyboard, which is sadly lacking in the "stop" key department. Is there an alternate way of getting it to boot off a CD?


As I've just been trough this myself, I found a solution (thanks to google) : you can go to the OpenBoot command line when booting the machine if you push the power button 2 times after the first beep. It's not always easy (timing), but once you got the right rhythm, it's a good alternative to STOP+A.
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Carnildo
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A more reliable way is to try to netboot off an oversized image. I think anything larger than 16MB should work; to be safe, I used a DVD iso.

A corrupt netboot image might also work, but I haven't tried that.
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