[Wlug] Progress with new Sparc????

[ken jones]

Doug et al

I found my cross over cables. printenv told me to set up at 9600bps ASCI
8 none 1. I have tried VT100 and auto-detect. When I turn on the sparc
it tells me that it is using ttya for input. However, my hyperterminal
sees nothing. If I slow down the expected clock rate to 2400 I get to
letters "pp" when I startup the sparc. I do not get "ok" and I get no
response when I hit the "Enter" key. Too bad, since that connection
would allow me to show you what my terminal is saying.

I did get a good response from probe-scsi and probe-scsi-all. It saw
both hard drives.

I am now trying test-all. Last time it just hung but now it seems to be
correctly testing the terminal screen.

OKAY! I know something. Self test failed a Transceiver check. It says:
Transceiver check -- failed
Selftest Failed. Return Code = -1
Testing sbus at 1f, 0/SUNW, fas at e 8800000
CE DMA fill from address ffef8000 for 80 bytes
Testing sbus at 1f, 0/SUNW fdtwo at f, 1400000
Testing floppy disk system. A formatted disk should be in the drive.
No diskette or incorrect format.
Self test failed. Return code = -1

I wondered what is the "transceiver test" which is failing. The word 
"transceiver" usually is referring to I/O. I was correct. I installed 
the ethernet cable and the transceiver test passed.

I know one thing now. The CDROM reader does not work. Part of test-all 
is to check for a formatted disk in the reader. I put a known good disk 
in, but the SUN does not see it. That does not explain why it will not 
boot up correctly. It should note that there is no disk and boot to 
installed linux.

My latest status is to try booting over my office network.  I gave my
home router/DHCP server the new sparc's ethernet address and assigned
an IP address. I have no idea whether the sparc is configured to
expect a DHCP address.  I do not see where I can configure that.

Ken Jones



Doug Mildram wrote:
> doug> I know the Sparc a bit.
>
> give me a call   hell, i am trashing sparc's here, incl. 1 ultra1
>
> also: sun keyboard is a big factor.  If it's seen at powerup,
>                            its the console (monitor or no monitor)
>
> if keyb not attached on powerup, 
>             the com1 equivalent /dev/ttya     (DIN or 25pin, varies)
>           becomes the console.
>
>
> doug 508-243-6580 cell
>
>
> MORE RANDOM TIPS TO MYSELF YEARS AGO:
> on a SPARC   instead of BIOS we have "eeprom" or "rom prompt"....
>
> There's no "F2" or "DELETE" hint during bootup,
> but there is one "dangerous" way to stop either the OS or the boot-up.
>
>      L1-a  or STOP-A is like a ctl-Z to the OS...or an interrupt a bootup.
>
> eeprom prompt is "ok"
> ok> 
>
> If you accidentally STOP the OS by mistake you can get it to go BACK UP WITH
>
> ok> go
>             or maybe
> ok> continue
>
> normally we do NOT DO MUCH with the eeprom settings, 
> AND, it is possible to tweak eeprom settings from either situation:
>       1) from the ok> prompt with "setenv" 
>       2) from SOLARIS      with # eeprom
>
> So you can see all the settings with a simple  anyuser% /usr/sbin/eeprom
>
> Syntax is slightly different. I wont talk about UNIX "eeprom" anymore
>   except to say there is a man page.
>
> BACK TO THE ok> PROMPT    you can...most notably:
>
> ok> setenv auto-boot? false
>          or
> ok> setenv auto-boot? true
>
> the question mark is not a "wild character". It just implies
>     that it's a true/false parameter.
>
>  false  means it will  *NOT* boot to solaris... on power up.   
>   true  means "normal"...will try to load solaris from boot-device
>
> a UNIX "reboot" command will override this setting.
>
> -----boot "device" in eeprom
> NORMALLY the eeprom setting for boot-device has a few words
>    and "disk" should be the first word.
>
> ok> printenv boot-device
>
>        may return           disk diskbrd diskisp disksoc net
> I only know what "disk" and "net" means.....
>        "net" is useless unless you have another "diskless server" set up.
>
>
>
> ok> probe-scsi   (can you see the CD drive?)
>    Target 0
>      Unit 0    Disk .....
>  
>
>   maybe not . but if the CD is on an external scsi bus you may need to say
>
> ok> probe-scsi-all      (can you see the CD drive?)
>
> pci at 1f,4000/scsi at 3,1  (a 2nd controller for the external scsi port)
>    Target 6
>     Unit 0       removable read only device TOSHIBA.....
>      Unit 0    Disk .....
>
> pci at 1f,4000/scsi at 3
>    Target 0
>      Unit 0    Disk .....
>
> BACK TO installation. hopefully you simply say:
>
> with solaris2.7 CD in the drive,
>
> ok> boot cdrom
>
> didnt work? it must have been looking for 
>
>
> ok> devalias
>
> shows 
>
> cdrom    /pci at 1f,4000/scsi at 3/disk at 6,0:f
>
> BUT I HAD A CD drive on the 3,1 controller so I can say:
>
> boot /pci at 1f,4000/scsi at 3,1/disk at 6,0:f
>
> AND THIS WORKED on this particular machine.
>
> (if you see the CD light come on, and eventually see some kernel string like
>
> SunOS 5.7 Generic_106541-17 sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-Enterprise
>
>
> THEN YOU KNOW you got the right command.
>
> Next you hope your CD and CD drive dont have too many read errors.
>
> ok> 
>
>
> SPECIAL BOOT ARGUMENT......to rebuild /dev* entries.
>  
> lets say you ADD HARDWARE  like a 2nd disk.
>
> UNIX% halt
>                ...add a disk if you can...then you'd want to
>
> ok>  boot -r            (THIS Reconfigures /dev and /devices,
>                         so it would add /dev/???/??? for the new disk)
>
> SPECIAL BOOT ARGUMENT......to stop at singleuser.
>  
>
> ok>  boot -s    (would stop at runlevel 1 for the default kernel ..on disk?)
>
> But even then (unlike most unix's) it prompts you
>   for the root password, i think. So dont forget it.  ------------------doug
>
>
>
>