[plug] SubBlade 100

[raven at themaw.net]

Could you set the line wrap on your mailer please.
It's a bit hard to make a sensible reply ....

On Tue, 9 Nov 2004, John Smith wrote:

> Hello All.
> 
> This is my first post to this list for several years... So be gentle on me.
> 
> I have "inherited" a SunBlade 100. It came with a "stuffed" copy of Solaris on
 it & I want to replace it with a "flavour" of Linux. I've been running RedHat X on
 another PC for quite some time so I'm comfortable with RedHat however I see that
 they don't have a recent port for a sparc box.
> 
> So without starting the "which Linux is best" war can someone share with me
 which way to go? I see Debian appears to be reasonably recent but I am open
 to any suggestions.

I've unstalled Gentoo and Debian on my Ultra 1. Both are fine OSs.

> 
> I have also seen on Sun's site a comment about the correct version of
 OpenBoot to load / install Linux. The box I have has ver 4.0. I freely
 admit to knowing bugger all about the Sun box. I'm still feeling my way around.

I'm not aware of the OpenBoot problems you mention.
In fact I haven't paided much attention to it on my box except I think I 
need to update it.

> 
> I have been trawling around the internet to find out (a) where to get OpenBoot updates

sunsolve.sun.com and search for OpenBoot should get you some info.

 (b) How to install OpenBoot updates WITHOUT a working OS (The boot prompt)

Not sure either as I've only updated Solaris boxes.
However, I think you will find that the instructions will tell you to 
stick the EEPROM update in the root directory and boot from it. So it 
should be OS independent (hope).

 and (c) Which version of Linux to use and finally how to install it.

Well I can't recommend specific versions except to say beware of 2.6. As 
far as I know (last time I tried) there are problems with some frame 
buffer devices (so no X windows). So stick to a distribution that 
initially installs a 2.4 kernel and work from there.

Ian