Aurora 1.12 FAQ

The Aurora Linux FAQ ver 1.12

mostly written and maintained Matthew Swabey, mas01r@ecs.soton.ac.uk

Thanks go to all the contributers (too many to list!) and everyone from the devel and user lists.

ALERT: Upgrading the OBP of your SPARC can make Linux Unbootable! This is a known issue with Blade 100s / 150s and has been seen on an Ultra 2 with OBP3.15.

Answers:

What sun4m Architectures are Supported by Aurora?

Note: SPARC, SPARCStation and SS terms are interchangeable.

sun4m

SPARC Classic
SPARC LX/ZX
SPARC 4 (Netra i4, i400, j4)
SPARC 5 (Netra i5, i500, s5, i525)
SPARC 10 (10SX/10BX)
SPARC 20 (Netra i20, s20, i600, i625)

What sun4u Architectures are Supported by Aurora?

sun4u

Ultras
1. Ultra 1/1E
2. Ultra 2/2E
3. Ultra 5
4. Ultra 10
5. Ultra 30
6. Ultra 60
7. Ultra 80
E Series
1. E250
2. E3000 (CDROM Install)
3. E450
4. E4500
Blades
1. Blade 100
2. Blade 1000
3. Blade 2000

Status of Aurora on the SPARCStation 5/170

Aurora doesn't currently support this architechture and currently there are no plans to implement this support.

The reason for this is the rest of the SPARCStation 5 line use Texas Instruments CPUs which are supported in the kernel but the 170MHz version contains a Fujitsu TurboSPARC that only bears a slight similarity to the TI SPARCs. Linux has booted several times on this processor but it is unstable and had never been supported by Linux. BSDs will run on this architechture.

Most programs segfault on Aurora 2.00Beta2 after a while

Aurora 2.00Beta2 prelink is broken on some machines. Cron autoruns prelink every 24 hours so we need to stop it.

Firstly if you have been affected by this run prelink -ua. Then edit /etc/sysconfig/prelink and alter the line PRELINKING=yes to say PRELINKING=no.

How do I improve ssh performance on the sun4m and sun4u?

Be aware it can take up to 15 minutes to generate the SSH keys on sun4m architectures during install.

For vastly improved ssh performance install the openssl-XXXX.sparcv8.rpm (for sun4m) or openssl-XXXX.sparcv9.rpm (for sun4u) with the command: rpm -Uhv openssl-XXXX.sparcvX.rpm

There is a further speed increase availiable by dropping ssh version 1 instead of 2 but this has fundamental security flaws and is strongly discouraged - ssh 1 compatibility is the only reason this option is still available. Installing the v8 binaries is the far better option.

How do I setup the SX (cg14) Graphics cards on the SS10/20?

There is an issue with the 8MB VSIMM in the SS10 & SS20. Workaround: During initial install select 16bpp colour however during normal use the Xconfigurator won't work.

SMP Issues on the sun4m

There is an issue with swapon segfaulting on boot of sun4m SMP machines. This should be resolved in the near future. The swap partitions apparently work so this isn't a major problem.

Problems with ROSS HyperSPARCs

There is an issue with ROSS HyperSPARC processors, symptoms are hanging on free kernel memory or just after the init stage of boot. They can also suffer kernel halts. Their performance also seems to be very sluggish compared to SuperSPARCs.

Graphical install Hangs

If the graphical install hangs (usually on the format after parted) use the text install instead.

IDE Install Hangs (Ultra 5, 10 and Blade 100 (possibly Blade 150 and sunfire V100)

If installation hangs with disk problems try: boot cdrom linux ide=nodma or boot net linux ide=nodma and at the SILO prompt use linux ide=nodma.

Reboot after install fails with Remounting root in read-write mode: mount : no such partition found.

The problem is that at the end of the install, the next reboot fails to mount the root directory in rw mode. The error that comes up is:

Remounting root in read-write mode: mount : no such partition found.

If I boot usng linux single and execute the command mount -t ext2 /dev/sda2 -o remount,rw / it works fine.

Change the /etc/fstab file from:

LABEL=/ ....

/dev/sda2 .... for example. Use the partition you installed to.

Autodetection fails to find sungem network cards (Blades)

Autodetection of sungem network card nonfunctional, manually select sungem.

Getting to the OBP prompt via the Keyboard

During boot before the monitor is activated hit the STOP & A simultaneously.

Getting to the OBP prompt via a serial cable

Connect a serial cable to the serial port, ensure the keyboard isn't connected. Set the terminal settings to 9600bps, data to 8N1 and emulation to VT100. During initial boot send a BREAK to the sun. If you are using a HyperTerminal on windows the correct command for a BREAK is CTRL + ESC then F.

Why Aurora Install Media should be burned at 4x or less

This is the cure for a lot of problems from installer hanging before it can print the SILO prompt up. In fact this is the cure for a lot of mysterious problems so I suggest you always do this! If you ask on the newsgroup this is one of the most common problem.

Install from the Network

For this installation you will need:

A functioning server running:
- TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol)
- RARPD (Reverse Address Resolution Protocol) or DHCPD (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) and one of FTP (File Transfer Protocol), HTTP (Hyper Text Transport Protocol) or NFS (Network File System).
A network connection from the SPARC to be installed to the server listed above. IT MUST BE ON THE SAME SUBNET.
The SPARCs ethernet MAC address. This is printed on the top of the screen during boot and is of the form 08:00:20:xx:xx:xx (e.g. 08:00:20:9b:e7:ca).
A free IP address for the SPARC to use.

Installation Instructions:

Setup the RARPD (DHCPD) to supply the MAC address of the SPARC with the IP chosen above. (Please refer to appropriate FAQs as this is outside the scope of this one).
Copy the appropriate boot image, tftp32.img for sun4m or tftp64.img for sun4u from en/os/sparc/images to the root of the TFTP server (usually /tftpboot/).
Create a symlink the address of the workstation in hex (if you want to look it up the full name is hexadecimal) to the appropriate image. Note: Simply converting the number will NOT work as the IP adress is divided into 4 segments. Convert each segment into hex and concatenate them together in order eg. 0.0.0.1 becomes 00000001, not 1!
Full Example:
192.168.0.77 becomes C0A8004D
A quick way of generating the link using PERL is: ln -sf tftp32.img `perl -e 'printf ("%02X%02X%02X%02X\n",192,168,0,77);'`
For the SUN4M: To boot a sun4m you need to append a .SUN4M to the end. It has been reported that some versions of TFTPD don't respond without a link to both the image as hex (see above) as well as the hex.SUN4M image. Please contact me if you have more information on this issue.
e.g.
Create these symlink on the server: ln -sf tftp32.img C3196DA0.SUN4M and ln -sf tftp32.img C3196DA0 for a sun4m machine booting on IP 192.168.0.77
Acess the OBP and type boot net and follow the installation.

My type 6 UK keyboard mapping in X is broken with all keys mapped one to the left

This is an unresolved error with that keymap. A workaround exists by editing the following line in the XF86Config-4 file:

Option "XkbModel" "type5_us" to read Option "XkbModel" "type5"

Unfortunately this is the american mapping so characters such as " and @ are swapped but most should be functional.

Install on a Sun Blade 100 Fails with OBP 4.6.x

This is a known feature of the latest OBPs from sun. This was solved by reflashing with a 4.5.x OBP, and installation proceeded fine.

A word on the disk aliases in suns OBPs

This confuses a lot of people, me included but basically in the OBP the disk aliases work like this:

OBP Alias "disk" = SCSI ID 3
OBP Alias "disk3" = SCSI ID 0

Building a custom kernel under aurora

At first a daunting task for a beginner this is one of the most powerful features of linux so don't be afraid! Firstly familiarise yourself (but don't follow the instructions yet!) with the following guides:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-7.3-Manual/custom-guide/ch-custom-kernel.html provided by RedHat (note that Aurora is in no way associated with RedHat Linux).
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/other-formats/html_single/Kernel-HOWTO.html hosted by The Linux Documentation Project www.tldp.org

You will need the following:

The latest kernel source, available from the aurora site or mirrors, kernel-2.4.20-2.3sparc.src.rpm at the time of writing.
The compiler. Aurora's kernels are built with kgcc. You will need the compat-* rpms installed.

Following the redhat guides instructions you should be able to build yourself a lovely custom kernel. Be advised not to overwrite your current kernel, create a new entry in silo.conf to allow you to test it first. After you have rebooted is a bad time to realise you have managed to forget to compile in the SCSI HDD driver.

What about RHWS or RHEL or Fedora?

It was decided that we would follow Fedora, and the team has been working hard on this and currently we are going to be only single digit weeks away from a release.

The whole 32bit vs 64bit issue

Okay so you wonder why all the programs are currently built as 32bit code not 64bit while only the kernel is 64? The answer is fairly complex:
The Price of 64 bit: The cost of using 64bit operations throughout is huge. Unless a number is bigger than 4294967296, the size of a 32 bit binary number, most of the data is unused. This translates into effectively WASTING half you main memory, memory bandwidth to the CPU and the CPU cache. This is a huge performance hit.
The Payoff of 64 bit: Well there are two actually: The first is that a 64bit CPU will usually be able to perform 64bit math and logic calculations very quickly compared to a 32bit processor that will have to use software fixes. Note this is mitigated by the fact many 32bit processors can do multi register operations quickly. However as we have discussed above how many times do you actually need 64 bit maths? That said if you have to use big maths a native 64 bit arch is going to be fast.
The second is more subtle and of far more import: with a 64 bit pointer you can address more than 4GB of RAM. Note that there are hardware hacks to allow a 32 bit x86 system to use more than 4 gigs but they require operating system support and are very nasty and costly in performance terms. This HUGE address space allows extremely large applications such as databases (4GB isn't actually that large these days) to exist efficiently.
Auroras Implementation: Aurora linux currently only supports a 32 bit userland. This means the kernel exists in 64 bit space allowing it to use more than 4GB of memory. Programs however are limited to 4GB of memory per thread or program (e.g. 2 programs could use 8GB total). Work is currently being done to bring a 64 bit userland into useability. As you can imagine this is real in depth programming.

Whatever won't build on an UltraSPARC

As said above the 64 bit userland is not currently supported and there is usually no reason whatsoever to do so, all you need to do is type sparc32bash to get a working 32 bit build enviroment.

Wouldn't it be great to use up2date?

Sparing no expense the aurora team brings you our own up2date server! Follow the instructions on http://current-aurora.anthonymendoza.com/ or download the script. Great work again people.

How do I install with more than 4GB of RAM?

Firstly, you are lucky! Secondly you just need to either remove RAM to below 4GB for the install, and then add it again OR you can disable it in the PROM with the following commands: asr-disable bank x command where x is 1, 2, 3, or 4. To enable it after install use asr-enable bank x.