Date: Thu, 14 Jan 99 15:28:54 EST From: Dwight McKay (The Moderator) Reply-To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V12 #2 To: Suns-at-Home-List Suns-at-Home Digest Thu, 14 Jan 99 Volume 12 : Issue 2 Today's Topics: 3/60 bwtwo and cgfour 'zaphod' problem (V12#1) Old Fujitsu Drives and a Sun2 (2 msgs) Old Fujitsu Drives and a Sun2 (V12#1) problem... SOL.2.6 ...+ SS LX.. Readin a SunOS HD under Solaris 2.6? Solaris 2.6 DNS problems over ppp Solaris2.6 run on Sparc2 with Weitek Power Up Chip ? SUMMARY: Solaris 2.6 loads, won't boot Suns-at-Home Digest V12 #1 (2 msgs) zaphod problem +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Submissions: suns-at-home@net-kitchen.com | | Requests: suns-at-home-request@net-kitchen.com | | WWW Archive access: http://www.net-kitchen.com/~sah | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 14:48:55 -0800 From: "James W. Birdsall" Subject: 3/60 bwtwo and cgfour 'zaphod' problem (V12#1) To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com Allan Kelly writes: > >Problem: Moving the mouse from cgfour monitor to bwtwo monitor causes cgfour X >display to disappear, exposing the boot output. I am told the framebuffer >swapping behaviour is called 'xzaphod'ing but a net search for this term has >not helped. The fundamental problem is that some cgfours have an overlay plane which can be used as another bwtwo device. When I was running a similar configuration I saw the same problem under Openlook 2: if X was using cgfour0, when the mouse moved back to bwtwo0 (my boot console), the overlay plane (bwtwo1) popped up, covering the color display that I wanted. None of my fooling around with options to the X server achieved anything. I just lived with it, using bwtwo0 as my boot console and main display and only using the cgfour for the few things that required color, until I was able to get a 24-bit framebuffer for another machine and gave up on the cgfour entirely. I suspect the only answer may be to compile stock X11 and if necessary patch the source. --James - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 09:41:53 -0500 From: John DiMarco Subject: Old Fujitsu Drives and a Sun2 To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com In message <199901072030.PAA15674@tigger.net-kitchen.com> Karl Maftoum writes: >I have a Sun2(Actually a Sun1/100U with an upgraded CPU board). The old >machine still works except for the fact that both Fujitsu M2322K drives >appear to have packed it in. They are hooked up to a Xylogics 451 >controller, I have reformatted the drives many times, but to no avail. >The machine will normally accept a SunOS install, but either half-way >through or some time after finishing the drives will develop a large >amount of bad sectors etc rendering them useless. > >Whilst I don't hold out much hope for salvagin the Fujitsu drives, what >I would like to do is substitute some other form of drive on this >machine. Unfortunatly, I haven't been able to find the specs for the >interfacing for these drives. They're SMD drives. I'm not surprised your old Fuji's have packed it in -- consider all those moving parts, way past their design lifetime... You should be able to use almost any SMD drive on your XY451 controller (although depending on the drive, it may possibly be tricky to come up with a format.dat entry for it). SMD is quite obsolete, so you should be able to get surplus drives from people with old machines gathering dust in the back room, for roughly the cost of carrying them away. NB: "carrying them away" is often somewhat more than trivial, since I've never heard of SMD drives in anything smaller than an 8" form factor. Regards, John -- John DiMarco Office: SF2101 CSLab Systems Manager Phone: 416-978-5300 University of Toronto Fax: 416-978-1931 http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~jdd - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Jan 1999 11:46:16 -0500 From: Michael Thompson Subject: Old Fujitsu Drives and a Sun2 To: "Karl Maftoum" It is very cool having a 100U. The oldest machines that I have are a 2/120 server and 2/75 clients. I have been looking for one of the black Sun 1 workstations for a while. They are very pricey. You should have a SCSI controller in the system along with the 451 SMD controller. My 2/120 has a ribbon cable running from the SCSI controller to the side if the tower. There are two boards mounted in the side. One is a SCSI to QIC-02 for the tape drive, and the other is a SCSI to ESDI for the disks. I have two 80MB ESDI disks in the tower. You could skip the SMD drives and install SCSI or ESDI drives. Your Xylogics SMD controller was probably a 450 that was replaced by a 451. The 451 will work with drives that have more than 1024 cylinders. Just about any SMD drive should work on the 451 controller. If you use a non-Sun drive you will have to manually enter the physical geometry of the drive. Michael Thompson E-Mail: M_Thompson@IDS.net - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 15:03:44 -0800 From: "James W. Birdsall" Subject: Old Fujitsu Drives and a Sun2 (V12#1) To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com "Karl Maftoum" writes: > >Whilst I don't hold out much hope for salvagin the Fujitsu drives, what >I would like to do is substitute some other form of drive on this >machine. Unfortunatly, I haven't been able to find the specs for the >interfacing for these drives. What you have is an SMD controller and drives. They were popular in the minicomputer and workstation server markets in the early to mid-80's but have died out since. If you have good enough electronic junk/surplus places near you, you might be able to find SMD drives if you're very lucky. Alternatively, if you're near enough to Seattle, you can have some of mine. (I'm not shipping 150-pound disk drives!) Your only other hope is to get a Multibus SCSI/serial controller and go with SCSI disks. I've had mixed results connecting those to more modern drives (it was never exactly happy connected to a Fast SCSI-2 drive but it ran for several years before the errors got too bad for the machine to function) but your mileage may vary. --James - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 18:06:06 +0200 From: "Chris S" Subject: problem... SOL.2.6 ...+ SS LX.. To: System Configuration : Main Board ---------- SPARCStation LX - s/n 135395 - ROM rev 2.9 64 MB RAM The EEPROM environmet-variables are set by DEFAULT. Storage Peripherals ------------------- 3.1 GB HD (Quantum Fireball ST) ( root partition 1GB /usr partition 1GB /export/home partition 1GB swap partition 64MB ) 230MB MagnetoOptical Drive Fujitsu M2512A2 CDROM Toshiba XM3401B SBus Cards ----- SunPC 5x86 133Mhz .... Problem description.. The SunPC seems to have a lot of problems under Solaris 2.6 (H/W 5/98) the following errors/problems generated in random order, while I was trying to run SunPC. Note that when runnig SunPC there are not any warning/error messages in the console. Memory allocation for SunPC is 16MB.(the maximum allowed) 1) Problems without the 105557-01 patch 1.1) The SunPC window opens and hangs with the message: -> VGA-BIOS (C)1990 American Megatrends Inc. Version 1.B SoftPC 3.00 (C) Copyright Insignia Solutions Inc. 1987-93 SunPC (C) 1991-1997 Sun Microsystems, Inc. 486 BIOS (C)1990 American Megatrends Inc. 2) Problems with the 105557-01 patch 2.1) Can not run "prep.bat" I can run this command ONLY one time after the SunPC installation. Then enery time I m trying to run it, I get errors such: prep: Label "missingnet" not found or Bad Command or Filename or Hang without any warning/error.. 2.2) Can not install MS-Windows 3.1/3.11/95 I have to run the "prep" manually in order to start the windows install. (ie to copy the autoexec.bat and the other files from f:\drivers\.... to c:\ by hand) and I must copy the files from the windows cdrom/floppies to a new SunPC hard disk and mount it as drive D. Without this "trick" i can run the windows "setup" program but after a little time the SunPC will hang! a) windows 3.1 setup : SunPC cannot load some files used but setup b) windows 3.11 setup : (same as 3.1) c) windows 95 setup : the SunPC sometimes hangs, or (after the installation) boots and cannot load win95 (cannot find files like *.VXD ) Note that, I ve tried a lot of windows packages like : Windows 3.1, Windows 3.1 Greek, Windows For Workgroups 3.11 Windows 95 upgrade, Windows 95 PanEuropean Edition. Conclusion ----------- I think that SunPC under Solaris 2.6 corrupts the sunpc-harddisk files and cannot "see" correctly any space of the unix fs that is mapped as pc drive (with the "net use" command). I used a sunpc-harddisk image from my previous SunPC installation (under 2.5.1). SunPC managed to corrupt a lot of files there.. The installation of SunPC was correct, ( I did ALL the steps from the manual) without any error/warning. Also , I ve changed the location of the SunPC card (to the other SBUS-Slot), without any result. Any help ???? Chris PS. I am running now the 2.5.1 System Configuration : Main Board ---------- SPARCStation LX - s/n 135395 - ROM rev 2.9 64 MB RAM The EEPROM environmet-variables are set by DEFAULT. Storage Peripherals ------------------- 3.1 GB HD (Quantum Fireball ST) ( root partition 1GB /usr partition 1GB /export/home partition 1GB swap partition 64MB ) 230MB MagnetoOptical Drive Fujitsu M2512A2 CDROM Toshiba XM3401B SBus Cards ----- SunPC 5x86 133Mhz .... Problem description.. The SunPC seems to have a lot of problems under Solaris 2.6 (H/W 5/98) the following errors/problems generated in random order, while I was trying to run SunPC. Note that when runnig SunPC there are not any warning/error messages in the console. Memory allocation for SunPC is 16MB.(the maximum allowed) 1) Problems without the 105557-01 patch 1.1) The SunPC window opens and hangs with the message: -> VGA-BIOS (C)1990 American Megatrends Inc. Version 1.B SoftPC 3.00 (C) Copyright Insignia Solutions Inc. 1987-93 SunPC (C) 1991-1997 Sun Microsystems, Inc. 486 BIOS (C)1990 American Megatrends Inc. 2) Problems with the 105557-01 patch 2.1) Can not run "prep.bat" I can run this command ONLY one time after the SunPC installation. Then enery time I m trying to run it, I get errors such: prep: Label "missingnet" not found or Bad Command or Filename or Hang without any warning/error.. 2.2) Can not install MS-Windows 3.1/3.11/95 I have to run the "prep" manually in order to start the windows install. (ie to copy the autoexec.bat and the other files from f:\drivers\.... to c:\ by hand) and I must copy the files from the windows cdrom/floppies to a new SunPC hard disk and mount it as drive D. Without this "trick" i can run the windows "setup" program but after a little time the SunPC will hang! a) windows 3.1 setup : SunPC cannot load some files used but setup b) windows 3.11 setup : (same as 3.1) c) windows 95 setup : the SunPC sometimes hangs, or (after the installation) boots and cannot load win95 (cannot find files like *.VXD ) Note that, I ve tried a lot of windows packages like : Windows 3.1, Windows 3.1 Greek, Windows For Workgroups 3.11 Windows 95 upgrade, Windows 95 PanEuropean Edition. Conclusion ----------- I think that SunPC under Solaris 2.6 corrupts the sunpc-harddisk files and cannot "see" correctly any space of the unix fs that is mapped as pc drive (with the "net use" command). I used a sunpc-harddisk image from my previous SunPC installation (under 2.5.1). SunPC managed to corrupt a lot of files there.. The installation of SunPC was correct, ( I did ALL the steps from the manual) without any error/warning. Also , I ve changed the location of the SunPC card (to the other SBUS-Slot), without any result. Any help ??? Regards Chris - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 00:46:39 -0500 From: Mauricio Tavares Subject: Readin a SunOS HD under Solaris 2.6? To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com When my Sparc 1 crashed, its was running SunOS 4.1.4. Now, I got another 2GB HD and plan on isntalling Solaris 2.6 in it. ONce that is done, can I mount the SunOS HD, so I can try to salvage whatever I can off it? - ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1999 02:35:12 -0500 From: "Matthew Srebinski" <34txxse@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu> Subject: Solaris 2.6 DNS problems over ppp To: I have a SPARCStation ELC running Solaris 2.6 on a Sun 424M external drive. I have it setup as a standalone machine at home. Whenever I dialup to the internet with asppp it will connect fine but icmp (ping) and dns do not appear to work. I have installed the latest dns patch (105755-06) to the system and this did not affect it in any way. I do have 'dns' on the hosts line of the nsswitch.conf file and my nameservers listed in the resolv.conf file. My modem is a Hayes Acura 144+Fax. Any help would be appreciated. Matt - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 19:51:49 +0100 From: Luc Martin Subject: Solaris2.6 run on Sparc2 with Weitek Power Up Chip ? To: "Suns-at-Home-List@tigger.net-kitchen.com" Hi, My home wstation is a SparcStation 2 with Power Up Weitek Chip (64 Megs 2G), actually running (nicely) with Solaris 2.5. I wish, specially for java home develop., upgrade it to Solaris 2.6 (or 7). Does anyone has experience with Solaris 2.6 and Power Up ? Thanks in advance, Luc Martin - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 18:24:18 -0700 From: Bradford Castalia Subject: SUMMARY: Solaris 2.6 loads, won't boot To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com > - ------------------------------ > > Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 08:10:43 -0600 (CST) > From: John Petty d-4420 (504)257-1925 > Subject: SUMMARY: Solaris 2.6 loads, won't boot > To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com > ... /var and swap need to be separate ... > > I just read the "Upgrading to a SPARCstation 2" reply from Mike Frisch > where he states "You just have to remember that the boot partition (not > drive) must be 1GB or less. The old PROMs do not know how to translate > anything beyond 1GB." > Just to confirm the point: The issue is the maximum SIZE of the boot partition, not the NUMBER of partitions. In the SunOS (pre-Solaris) days separate /(root), /usr, and /var partitions with the required swap partition, of course, (and perhaps /home and /export partitions on servers) was the recommended norm. The guiding philosophy was that the root partition was relatively fixed (except for building different kernels from the generic) and so could be sized tightly to the required system space for efficiency (that was when we fretted over a few megabytes), and /usr was sized to allow just enough room for possible optional system software additions. But root and /usr could be wiped and reloaded when OS upgrades were needed (they were basically a complete replacement affair) without the pain of restoring user home directories and other non-system software files from the dump tapes. The /var partition was variable sized (obviously ;-) depending on the mail and print spool, etc. services requirements and the discipline of keeping the log files from overwhelming the available space; but since the log files are notorious space hogs (a misbehaving application or device could suck up everything in no time) it was safest to keep them constrained to their own partition (a tactic that still has merit in some situations). With the advent of bigger, less expensive disks combined with incremental OS upgrades the philosophy shifted towards setting up a system disk with just swap and root (and maybe /opt if the installation of optional packages seemed to be a separate management issue), especially on workstations. Getting carried away with all that neat freeware? Then get another disk (what's a few G anyway :^) formatted with a single partition and mount it on /usr/local (or /opt/pub, or whatever) loaded with whatever was there before and needs more space. Same goes for /opt, or /home, etc. The point to remember is that, other than the partition size restriction that comes up in certain circumstances (which is documented), the issue is space management. I like having my system disk relatively small and stable (spool and log files notwithstanding) with a full backup safely tucked away for easy restoration of the disk when it fails. No hassles with incremental backups; on the occasion of a significant change to the system software just make another full backup. Other filesystems on other disks get the attention they need depending on their use. --- Bradford Castalia Castalia@azstarnet.com Systems Analyst 520-624-6629 idæim 520-792-4576 712 N. Seventh Avenue Tucson, AZ 85705 "Build an image in your mind, fit yourself into it." The log of Cyradis seeress of Kell. - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 17:09:05 -0500 From: "George Kofoed" Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V12 #1 To: > >There is a file in the OS that instructs the system what disk partitions to >mount, nad how to refer/label them... (/etc/something - it has been a long day) >I suspect that your drive is now ID #2, but the file says to look on ID #3 for >the partition with the info (boot, etc.) it wants. I suggest either checking >the file (/etc/mountfs?) and making sure the device addresses are correct OR >try setting the drive to the origianl SCSI ID #3. > >The OpenBoot PROM tells the hardware where to load the kernel from, the >/etc/mountfs (or whatever it is called) tells the kernel where to find the >needed filesystems. You fixed the OpenBoot PROM, but not the /etc/mountfs >file... The file you are thinking about is the /etc/vfstab file, and you are correct in stating that since he changed the boot device, the vfstab file will have to be modified to look for this device vice the old one Cheers, George A. Kofoed Combat Systems Administrator (ha ha) - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 17:55:55 +0100 (CET) From: Wilko Bulte Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V12 #1 To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com As Dwight McKay wrote... > Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 08:21:17 -0600 (CST) > From: John Petty d-4420 (504)257-1925 > Subject: CD Roms that work With Sun Equipment/SparcLinux > To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com > > I have a Toshiba 3701 2X on ye olde 486 PC and it had no problems with > Solaris x86 2.4 or Solaris sparc 2.6. I picked up a Toshiba 5701 6X that A XM5701 is a 12x CDROM drive, not a 6x. Wilko _ ______________________________________________________________________ | / o / / _ Bulte email: wilko@yedi.iaf.nl |/|/ / / /( (_) Arnhem, The Netherlands WWW : http://www.tcja.nl ______________________________________________ Powered by FreeBSD __________ - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 09:40:20 -0500 (EST) From: Clarence Wilkerson Subject: zaphod problem To: akelly@holyrood.edu.ac.uk, suns-at-home@tigger.net-kitchen.com >From the X11R6.3 man1/Xsun.1x page .B \-zaphod This option disables switching between screens by sliding the mouse off the left or right edges. With this disabled, a window manager function must be used to switch between screens. This is an argument given to Xsun when it is booted up. In your case, it would be in the /sbin/init script of the xterm nfs directory, inserted in the line which is similar to XSRVCMD="$Xserver -fp $FP -co /usr/lib/X11/rgb -pn $XDMCMD" Good luck, Clarence - ------------------------------ End of Suns-at-Home Digest ******************************