i installed gentoo on my sparcstation4 today and came up with a few points that might make it easier for future users. NOTE: i installed via serial console and use the "net boot" option of bootstrapping the sparc. 1. change "When the debian woody install disk asks you to setup a kernel, go down to Execute a shell" to something like "When the debian woody install disk asks you to setup a kernel, scroll down the debian menu to "Execute a shell". Select this and then skip ahead to Part3 of this guide ("Installing Gentoo")". i think this makes things a bit more clear. 2. for those installing from a serial console, this URL is probably helpful: http://www.obsolyte.com/sunFAQ/serial/ 3. for sparc32, the CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS given in Code Listing 4.3 are probably not correct. i used "-O2 -pipe". 4. when booting from the debian tftp image (kernel 2.2.20), when i tried to do 'mount -o bind /proc /mnt/gentoo/proc', it fails since 2.2.20 doesn't support binding. not performing this mount causes failures like: "/usr/sbin/MAKEDEV: warning: can't read /proc/devices" later on. 5. code listings 4.5,4.6, and 4.7 use relative paths. absolute paths should be used to avoid confusion that's all for now. i'm only at stage1 bootstrapping. i'll add more to this bug as i continue.
with respect to item #4, the following is a workaround: before chroot'ing in the gentoo environment, cp /bin/mount /mnt/gentoo/bin # sparc stage1 has no mount?!?! // do the chroot // do the env-update // do the source /etc/profile mount -t proc proc /proc now you're all set.
you should give this to someone with a sparc box
CC'ing sparc@gentoo.org. not sure what else to do.
reassigning to the sparc document dev
Created attachment 13305 [details] Sparc install guide
Updated the Sparc Install Guide. Primarily the beginning and end of the document were updated, the central section was copied exactly from the current x86 install guide. An html version can be found at: http://cvs.gentoo.org/~blademan/sparc-install-doc.html
Created attachment 13311 [details] Updated .xml (thanks to Sven Vermeulen)
Created attachment 13372 [details] Cut & Paste gentoo-stats from x86 doc
html version of above: http://cvs.gentoo.org/~blademan/sparc-install-doc.html
Created attachment 13606 [details] Sparc install guide This can also be viewed as html at: http://cvs.gentoo.org/~blademan/sparc-install-doc.html
Created attachment 13775 [details] Sparc install guide
Reviewed the document. I'm going to make the XML-file more "elegant" (meaning easier to read for document editors and translators). Main changed things: - Some typo's - Changed proxy-setting so that it's not http_proxy == ftp_proxy == rsync_proxy but all seperate (needed in some companies where http-traffic must go through a proxy, but rsync doesn't). - fdisk output for "Whole Disk" should embrace the whole disk - remove "-o notail" for ReiserFS as SILO doesn't require it - remove all references to grub I still have a question: is /mnt/gentoo already available on the LiveCD or not? On the x86 LiveCD it is so "mkdir /mnt/gentoo" isn't necessary. If it is on SPARCs LiveCD too, we should remove that command as users tend to report it as a bug (even if it's plain simple and cosmetic) and it'll need to be changed anyway.
Created attachment 13963 [details] Installation Guide Reviewed document. Also introduces word-wrapping at around 73 characters for easy navigation using your favorite editor. Removed leading spaces/tabs for ease of editing and translating. Uses <i> instead of <c> inside <pre>'s, and <c> instead of <i> otherwise. Also transformed several <i>...</i> to <e>...</e> inside <p>'s. Added several <path>..</path> where possible.
You can also view the reviewed document at http://cvs.gentoo.org/~swift/gentoo-sparc-install.html or download the xml from http://cvs.gentoo.org/~swift/gentoo-sparc-install.xml.
Created attachment 13966 [details] Updated installation guide Updated with Blademan's latest changes
Created attachment 14050 [details] SPARC install guide Changed lines 750-760 to remove lilo references and insert SPARC32 /boot warning.
Changes were made to install doc.
