Date: Sun, 23 Feb 97 17:28:09 EST From: Dwight McKay (The Moderator) Reply-To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #7 To: Suns-at-Home-List Suns-at-Home Digest Sun, 23 Feb 97 Volume 10 : Issue 7 Today's Topics: Finally got an SS5; sources for cables & (internal) CD? MMU & PROM monitor questions on 4/110 Problems Booting a 4/670MP Solaris library path Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #6 [really Solaris 2.5 vs. 4/xxx's] Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #6 (2 msgs) +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Submissions: suns-at-home \ | | Requests: suns-at-home-request > @net-kitchen.com | | Archives: suns-at-home-archives / | | WWW Archive access: http://www.net-kitchen.com/~sah | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 15 Feb 1997 19:04:44 -0800 (PST) From: David Wolfskill Subject: Finally got an SS5; sources for cables & (internal) CD? To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com I had written about my efforts to find a reasonable (internal) CD drive (and cables, &c.) for a (newly-acquired) SS5. Well, here's the current status: * I found that the "new" internal SunCD 4 drive (mentioned in the SunExpress catalog as being for the UltraSPARC, part X6153A) also comes in a version labelled as being for the SS5/20; it's part #X6154A. The Sunexpress price (as of a couple of days ago, according to the on-line version of their catalog) listed the SunCD 2 drive at $325, and the SunCD 4 at $300. There may be a message there.... :-) (The SunCD 2 is a 2x drive; the SunCD 4 is a 4x drive.) I bought one -- I figured that since they're relatively new, I would be unlikely to find a working used one very inexpensively -- and found: * It does come with the internal audio cable for the SS5; I found this comforting (in that my perception of the probability that the device would work properly in the SS5 was increased). * However, the drive is about 0.25" (~0.63 cm) greater in height than the bezel that its faceplate replaces. That's a lot! I'm *barely* able to get the cover back on the chassis, and that only by removing a couple of flat "springs" on the bottom of the drive (and warping the cover). I *just* got the drive last night, so I haven't had a chance to do any (other) "reality checks" with anyone -- so any advice on this would be *most* welcome! * I had whined a bit about the cost of the parallel cable (part #X976A), which SunExpress lists as $60. I spoke with a VAR; turns out this VAR's (stated) cost was around $56. (These are US$, in case it isn't apparent.) Well... I got that, too. However, another reader of this list (Hi, Dave!) suggested that I get (since I admitted not having one) a "Workstation Express" catalog from NuData. I did; it's a little thinner than the SunExpress catalog (but then, the paper is thinner)... and it comes with a laminated "Quick Interface Refernce Card", which can *definitely* be handy for those of us doing this sort of thing.... Their phone number (for ordering a catalog or whatever) is 1-800-844-5757; FAX 1-908-905-5708. I have yet to actually order a product from them... yet -- but I may well.... Anyway, I find that I can have both the serial & parallel connections to the HP LaserJet 4P connected (to different machines) at the same time; evidently the printer auto-selects. Haven't checked to see if it blocks input from one if the other is busy, though.... :-) david -- David H. Wolfskill david@dhw.vip.best.com As a computing professional, I believe it would be unethical for me to advise, recommend, or support the use (save possibly for personal amusement) of any product that is or depends on any Microsoft product. - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 19:10:22 +1100 (EST) From: Malcolm Butler Subject: MMU & PROM monitor questions on 4/110 To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com I have a 4/110 that is exhibiting occasional memory errors. It passes the memory check at bootup, but after running for a while dies with a parity error. It's running NetBSD 1.2B and has 32M of RAM. I have been trying to use the PROM to examine the reportedly bad locations. However I am struggling with a few issues. The PROM version I have, 3.02, will allow me to look up virtual addresses. I can also do virtual to physical address translations. However I can't see how to look up arbitrary physical addresses. Also, the virtual address reported by the kernel trap does not appear to map to the same physical address in the PROM monitor as it did when the kernel was running. (Presumably the PROM maps the memory differently to the kernel?) There appears to be a large block of virtual addresses, starting at 0x800000 and extending apparently indefinitely, that are marked "page table invalid". Is this normal? Is the MMU failing? or am I just paranoid? Is this just the way the PROM sets up the MMU? I have also tried to read the memory using /dev/mem, and this appears to work. I was hoping that I would be able to provoke a memory error by doing this, but no joy. This suggests to me that the memory errors may not be real, or may be refresh related. Are there any documents available on the MMU used in the 4/110? Is there a later version of the PROM that has better memory diagnostics? Finally, does anyone know the mapping between physical addresses and the SIMMs on the CPU board? I've tried playing SIMM swapping but I am only guessing as to which SIMMs contain which address ranges. Thanks for any help, Malcolm Butler malb@bellman.apana.org.au - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 02:31:16 -0500 (EST) From: Jan Wolter Subject: Problems Booting a 4/670MP To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com First a bit of introduction. Grex (http://www.cyberspace.org) isn't in anyone's home. We are a non-profit organization running a free public access computer system. But I figured we'd fit OK on this mailing list, because we are trying to run our second-hand Suns with (almost) no money and (almost) no manuals. We currently run on a 4/260 running SunOS 4.1.3 (patched within a hair of being 4.1.4). If you want to look at snapshots of it, see http://www.hvcn.org/info/grex/dungeon.html. We are currently trying to bring up our next generation system, a 4/670MP. We bought a salvage 4/370 whose chassis, power supply and 501-1439 backplane we plan to use for the new system, a 4/6xx motherboard, 64Meg of SIMMs, and two SM100 cpu modules (one turned out dead, so we are running on just two CPUs for now). The 4/670 CPU passes all ROM diagnostics with flying colors. Unfortunately the Sun wizards who built the previous system are unavailable, so the project of getting this running has fallen into my dubious hands. Using the 4/370 CPU and the 4.1.1 SunOS that happened to be installed on it, I built up a root partition on sd2h (mounted on /mnt) from a SunOS 4.1.3u1 CDrom (leaving the original 4.1.1 root partition on sd0a so I would still have something to boot the 4/370 off of). I copied the boot program for /mnt/usr/kvm/stand/boot.sun4m to /mnt/boot, and did /usr/kvm/mdec/installboot -ltv /mnt/boot /mnt/kvm/mdec/bootsd /dev/rsd2h I grabbed /usr/kvm/stand/vmunix as a kernel, but also built a sun4m kernel of my own. Pulled the 4/370 CPU card out, put in the 4/670MP. Tried to boot it with the command boot /iommu/sbus/dma@f,81000/esp@f,80000/sd@1,0:h And it comes right back and says The file just loaded does not appear to be executable. And stops dead. I'm guessing (I have essentially *no* documentation) that this means that the ROM monitor somehow doesn't like the looks of whatever it got when it tried to load the boot program, which means either that /boot isn't the program it should be, or it loaded something other than /boot, either because my installboot was wrong, or the boot command was wrong. I'm stumped. Anyone have any clues to offer? Some things I've tried: - the "probe-scsi" ROM command finds both disks and reports sd2 as being target 1, unit 0, as in my boot command. - looking at /mnt/boot with "strings," it sure looks like a /boot program (ie, second string in it is "vmunix" and a bit later it says "Boot Release 4.1.3 (sun4m) #4: Mon Jul 27 17:19:06 PDT 1992"). It doesn't contain the "does not appear to be executable" message. - tried both the 4.1.1 installboot (the sd2h file system was (presumably) built under 4.1.1) and the 4.1.3 installboot. Made no difference. - tried booting off rsd0a (the partition the 4/370 happily boots off of). Got the same error. - tried booting off miscellaneous non-existant and non-bootable partitions, and got quite different errors. - tried the -h flag on the installboot command. Got me some kind of data exception instead of the "does note appear to be executable" message. Thanks for any help you can give. Jan Wolter janc@cyberspace.org - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 10:24:56 +1100 (EST) From: Craig Dewick Subject: Solaris library path To: Greg Hi Greg, > >The LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable lists libraries for the > >run-time dynamic linker to search before the default library path is > >searched. See the man page for ld(1) under the heading 'ENVIRONMENT'. > >I was trying to get nethack working under the X Windowing System when I > >first ran across this, with some help from a co-worker. > > You're doing something wrong if you have LD_LIBRARY_PATH set in your > environment in SunOS 5. Unlike SunOS 4, SunOS 5 allows you to specify > the default run-time path for each executable at link time. Do look > at the ld(1) manual page but ignore LD_LIBRARY_PATH and look at the -R > option instead. I've been pointed towards this by someone else, but thanks for the reminder. I've since gone around relinking all my X applications (except X itself until I rebuild it later this week with a few patches I'm working on). The problem is that something like Netscape cannot be relinked (since I don't have source), but I guess I could make a shell script wrapper for it. The secondary problem is that since I don't run Openwindows, but I use X built from the X Consortiums R6.3 source instead, the X shared libraries have different version numbers, and reside in /usr/X11R6.3/lib. And Motif does not exist at all since it's not public domain. I've got around the lack of a Motif library by building and using the public domain lesstif replacement from ftp.hungry.com, and symlinking it to the version number Netscape is expecting to find. Netscape for SunOS 5.x is built based on the default X environment Sun ships with their release CD's, so I have two options: - use the SunOS 5.5 version of Netscape and symlink all of the X libraries to the version numbers Netscape expects, or - use the SunOS 5.4 version of Netscape which already is static-linked with Motif and a couple of other X libs, but still needs a few symlinks. Either way I *have* to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH so Netscape can find the X libraries. So, the best way to solve this for now seems to be to wrapper the Netscape binary in a small shell script that explicity sets LD_LIBRARY_PATH for that single invocation. Regards, Craig. PS. I've emailed this to the Suns-at-Home list too since I also posted a message about this to that list. - ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 Feb 1997 22:08:26 -0800 (PST) From: James Lick Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #6 [really Solaris 2.5 vs. 4/xxx's] To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com [ This was also noted by "n.w. choe" , Al Potter ] [ , Craig Dewick , and ] [ Bill Kearney . NetBSD and BSDI are two good ] [ alternative OS choices for these machines. --ddm ] From: Frank Berndt > I've got a SUN 4/330M that's currently running 4.1.1 > > I've gotten the Solaris 2.5 CD-Rom disk, but I can't get it to boot. > Even thought the uname -a command gives me an archtype of SUN4. Frank, The sun4 kernel architecture (4/100, 4/200, 4/300 and 4/400 series) was dropped starting in Solaris 2.5. The highest Solaris supported on the 4/330 is 2.4. Looking ahead, all remaining VME support is being dropped in 2.6 which means the 4/600 is no longer supported in that release. Support for all other sun4* architectures will be available in 2.5 through 2.6. -- James Lick -- jlick@drivel.com -- http://drivel.com/jlick/ -- - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 17:49:56 -0500 (EST) From: Mike Frisch Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #6 To: dudleyw@cadvision.com > hi all, I am thinking of upgrading from sun os 4.1.1c to solaris 2.4 on > my ipc. I am a little curious to know why you want to install 2.4 considering that 2.5.1 is out. From what I've heard (and not having too much experience with 2.4), 2.5.1 offers significant enhancement over all previous versions. > a) what all is involved It's a pretty hairy progression from SunOS to Solaris. Personally, when I did the transition, I simply saved the files on SunOS that I wanted, wiped everything and did a fresh install. If you consult Sun's web site, you can find a migration guide which they have put a lot of effort into. > b) do the pro's outweigh the cons. I would say so. Solaris 2.x is much more modern, has more of a future, and is probably much better supported in freeware/GNU software. Mike. ====================================================================== Mike Frisch Email: mfrisch@saturn.tlug.org Northstar Technologies WWW: http://a19b89.rogerswave.ca/~mfrisch Newmarket, Ontario, Canada - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 20:16:57 -0500 (EST) From: Rick Leir EPS Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #6 To: Dwight McKay > hi all, I am thinking of upgrading from sun os 4.1.1c to solaris 2.4 on > my ipc. > a) what all is involved > b) do the pro's outweigh the cons. Pro: you are advancing 5 years in technology. Pro: the SVR4 flavour is more common nowadays than BSD. Con: it will use more disk space and it might feel slightly slower. Do you prefer the BSD flavour? Maybe you should upgrade to NetBSD(almost free from Walnut Creek) or BSDI(commercial). cheers -- Rick Rick Leir rleir@igs.net http://www.igs.net/~rleir - ------------------------------ End of Suns-at-Home Digest ******************************