Re: Installing and Running Debian Linux on U10

J.O. Aho wrote: 
boera@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

I couldn't find anything like this on the web so I wrote a page on my
website about my experiences of Installing and Running Debian Linux on
my SPARC Ultra 10s which someone may find useful.

http://members.lycos.co.uk/dmoore0100 


Nice review. Some comments:
1) sound should work, at least it works for me: both the onboard cs4231
(kernel module cs4231 in case of 2.4.x or snd-sun-cs4231 ALSA kernel
2.6.x) and my Creative Ensoniq (much better sound). xmms, audacity,
mpg123 all should work.



Maybe he was using Alsa, in Gentoo it works with the 2.6 kernels now, but
thats not so long ago they fixed it.
He may be trying with a 29bit sound card, this isn't supported in any kernel
under sparc linux.



2) I have a Winfast 2000 XP TV tuner which works perfectly with the
2.4.27 kernel. Unfortunately it locks up the machine with 2.6.9-2.6.15



Had same problem with the gigabit network card I first used, works fine in 2.4
with sk98lin driver, in 2.6 it don't work with the depricated sk98lin nor with
the new skge driver. So had to switch cards which works in both.



I'm using Fluxbox. The performance is good taking into account the age
of this machine.



I'm using ctwm, been my favorite since I run it on Sparc Classic with SunOS.



By the way, anyone got the Creator3D to work on an U10 running xorg and with
kernel 2.6.x? This is the only thing that has kept me from switching to 2.6,
in 2.4 the card works fine with xorg.



//Aho

Not sure if this answers any of these U10 questions, but fwiw, and since U60 is PCI based too...

I'm running twin head Creator3Ds on Debian U60 (not U10). They were OK under 2.4.27 and, after the usual tweaks for keyboard and mouse settings (no longer defined as Sun types), under 2.6.8-2 too. I stopped at 2.6.8-2 because that's a built package which installed painlessly with apt on my Debian system. One day perhaps I'll push it forwards (2.6.8-2 has the 2.6.8 file system bug fixed btw), but for now it works, and that'll do.

Bog standard EOM Creative PCI sound card worked without any fuss under both kernels.

Networking all fine, but using onboard U60 hardware of course and not PCI cards.

I've resisted the temptation to try and switch to either xorg or a later version of XF86Config. Since the majority of the X config (for the displays that is) is ignored because we're running framebuffers I can't see the point of upgrading if it works :)

And yes, Xinerama is running fine now too after some initial hiccups getting the monitors "matched"...

I can't, yet, make a PC PCI firewire card work, but I've been reading the threads here and am on the lookout for one from a Mac! I suspect that part of my problem may well be that my firewire drives are HFS+ and while I've loaded the relevant modules, that's too many variables to troubleshoot so later this week I'll format a drive EXT3 and try that...

John





.

Relevant Pages