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Debian on UltraSparc II

We already have one Sun Sparc running at Robocup @ TUG:

mika@robosparc ~ % cat /proc/cpuinfo
cpu             : TI UltraSparc I   (SpitFire)
fpu             : UltraSparc I integrated FPU
promlib         : Version 3 Revision 1
prom            : 3.1.3
type            : sun4u
ncpus probed    : 1
ncpus active    : 1
Cpu0Bogo        : 397.31
Cpu0ClkTck      : 000000000bebc200
MMU Type        : Spitfire

Now we got another one and I’d like to document the necessary steps for installing Debian on such a box (in case Mabu and me have to install a third one ;-)):

mika@sunkist ~ % cat /proc/cpuinfo
cpu             : TI UltraSparc II  (BlackBird)
fpu             : UltraSparc II integrated FPU
promlib         : Version 3 Revision 7
prom            : 3.7.0
type            : sun4u
ncpus probed    : 1
ncpus active    : 1
Cpu0Bogo        : 589.82
Cpu0ClkTck      : 0000000011a49a00
MMU Type        : Spitfire

We used the netboot installer (as CD-ROM did not work – as usual ;-)) to install Debian-Sparc. We configured rarpd (adjust /etc/ethers) and atftpd (provide the netboot image, in our case it was /opt/tftpboot/ and create a symlink based on the mac address of the computer you want to install).

Press Stop-A to interrupt the booting sequence, use ‘boot net’ to boot via network and then it’s pretty straight forward. d-i worked without any serious problems, just the console was somewhat b0rken. After installing GNU screen and zsh and grml‘s configuration files working on the box is comfortable. 8-)

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