Installing Suse 7.3 on an Ultrasparc 10

• restart your computer
• hit stop + a or type reboot to halt
• type boot cdrom
• enter your firmware password
• on the boot screen, hit enter for yast2 installer
• allow about 10-15 minutes on initial install to find brail display
• the installer will then probe your hardware
• select your language
• select your keyboard and time zone
  • you can test your keyboard near the bottom
• select new installation
• select hard disk
• partition screen
  • select use entire hard disk
• i did default system with office
• let auto SILO install
• set root password
• create new user or skip
  • if you skip, will prompt if nework client, select yes
• confirm installation, will get warning
• will first prepare hard disk
• then the detailed instalation begins
  • about 20-40 minutes total
• then it will finish basic installation
  • first updates configuration
  • copies files to system
  • installs boot loader
• boots system
• configure your monitor
  • ours wasnt listed, so used VESA with 1024x768 @ 60 Hz
• asks for desktop settings, click graphical desktop environment
  • will test the video mode, press esc if you dont see it
• very simple Graphical/X windows configuration
• finishes system configuration
• a congratulation screen, click finish installation
• note: install additional packages later with disks 2 and 3

Installing FreeBSD 5.3 beta 5 on a Ultrasparc 10

• insert your CD into the CD-ROM drive and reboot.
• press stop+a to halt the computer
• type boot cdrom at the prompt
• this should cause the computer to restart and boot from the cdrom
• enter the firmware password
• a menu will come up with 5 installation options
• we were unable to get options 2-5 to work, so stick with option 1: standard ANSI install
• when using this option, use ctrl + n to move down a list, and ctrl + p to move up a list
• select the standard installation
• when you get to partitioning the hard drive, first you must select each partition and delete it with d.
• because of the interface failures, it wont look like it did much, but it actually did.
• after all are deleted, select a to autopartition, and then q to continue.
• now you must select your distribution
• select the all option
• select to install the FreeBSD ports collection
• select your instalation media: CD-ROM
• you will be prompted to start installation
• a few packages will fail, and they will try many times and fail many times, this happens alot so just get used to it and sit by the computer pressing space or enter for awhile.

Installing Solaris 10 on an Ultrasparc 5

• insert your CD into the CD-ROM drive and reboot.
• press stop+a to halt the computer
• type boot cdrom at the prompt
• this should cause the computer to restart and boot from the cdrom
• enter the firmware password
• start installation
• chose your lnguage: 0 for english
• graphical installation will begin
• first 2 pages are introduction
• press f2 on each page to continue
• choose yes when asked if computer will be networked
• say no to using DHCP
• enter your hostname for hme0
• enter your ip for this computer
• say yes to subnet
• your netmask will most likely be 255.255.255.0
• say no to Ipv6
• select "Detect upon reboot" for the default route to hme0
• you will be shown everythign you just entered, check over to make sure its right then continue
• say no to kerberos security
• choose a name service, neither NIS or DNS worked, so choose none and go back to it later
• accept the license and continue
• choose f4 for intitial installation
• choose your geographical region and continue
• choose posix for locale
• dont install documentation unless you have the documentation CDs
• say no to additional products for now
• choose full distribution to install
• takes about 2 hours to install solaris (estimated)
• once its done it will reboot
• our graphical login failed as the X-Server crashes
• five different installations had the same result
• its kind of ironic how the Sun OS wont work on a Ultrasparc 5

Pitfalls and Tragedies

• Linux
  • Aurora 1.0(based on red hat 6.2) - filesystem full error on install
  • Mandrake 9.1 - wont read the CD
  • Debian - insanely complex installer, have to install each package into the kernel manually and most fail.
  • UltraPenguin - does not exist anywhere
  • UltraLinux - uncompatable
  • Suse 7.3 - actually worked
    • easy installation
    • very simple X configuration
    • necessary to install additional packages
    • hard to install a printer
    • doesnt want to print with lpr
    • difficult to set up DNS
    • GUI will make these easy to set up:
      • NIS client
      • NFS client
      • LDAP client - never got to this though
• Solaris
  • on an Ultra 5
    • X-server crashes on first boot
    • multiple reinstalls (4)
    • no video card test
    • shell works
  • on a Pentium
    • login fails - password problems
    • multiple reinstalls (2)
    • single-user mode didnt help
• BSD on Ultrasparc 10
  • no working user interface on install
  • network hard to configure (sometimes)
  • hard to partition (unless you know how)
  • no FTP support for X11 configuration
  • documentation is for a pentium

Links