Re: SPARCstation 5 - where to start?

[Tod McQuillin <devin@example.com>]

On Tue, 5 Jun 2001 gavin.walker@example.com wrote:

> Basically it came fully unloaded ;o) Someone had removed the graphics
> card, memory, CDROM and hard disks. A quick trip to Akihabara yielded
> an 8 bit frame buffer, and I managed to get a couple of hard disks for
> it from a friendly Unix sysadmin. The memory is on its way from a
> friend of a friend, so now it's a CDROM I'm lacking. Any ideas? Must
> be cheap!

You should be able to use any internal or external SCSI CDROM drive.
However, a CDROM isn't strictly necessary as you should be able to install
over the network.

> So, I haven't actually switched the thing on yet. Are there any
> diagnostics I can run to see if the hardware's OK?

I'm not intimately familiar with the SS5 open boot prom (OBP) but yes, you
should be able to turn it on and navigate the OBP from the 'ok' prompt.
If you don't have a keyboard the system will use the first serial port at
9600,N,1.

At the ok prompt you can see the current variable settings with
'printenv'.  To run diagnostics, set the 'diag-switch?' variable to true,
like:  setenv diag-switch? true

After that use reset-all and watch the power-on self test.

> Although one of the disks currently has Solaris installed, I've been
> told it won't boot off it, only off an external device. Whatever, I
> want to put Linux on it anyway as it seems to be the more sensible
> option. If I manage to sort out a CDROM, what do I do next? Can I burn
> a copy of SPARC Linux onto a CD on my PC?

Sure, if you're installing from CDROM.  Or you can copy the distribution
to your PC, set up an NFS server or FTP server and install over the
network.  (You must first boot the sparc from floppy disk, or set up a
tftp server and boot over the network.)

The exact steps to follow will be different depending on which
distribution you choose, but there should be detailed instructions
available.  You might also consider installing NetBSD or OpenBSD (but
don't tell TLUG if you do this :) )
-- 
Tod McQuillin