Section 1: General

About the UltraLinux FAQ.

  1. What is the history/design/philosophy of UltraLinux ?
  2. What is up with all the names (Ultra, SPARC, S/Linux) ?
  3. Why are there two ports for the SPARC, 32- and 64-bit ?
  4. Is everything 64-bit on sparc64, and can I compile 64-bit applications ?
  5. When will it be done ?
  6. I'm having a problem with .... What should I do ?
  7. Does David Miller work on UltraLinux full-time ?
  8. Will UltraLinux run regular Linux (Intel) binaries ?
  9. Will UltraLinux run SunOS/Solaris binaries ?
  10. How good is the SunOS/Solaris emulation ?
  11. What kind of file systems does UltraLinux use ?
  12. Can I share a swap partition between SunOS/Solaris and UltraLinux ?
  13. Can I use the Logical Volume Manager (LVM) on UltraLinux ?
  14. I heard that UltraLinux is faster then SunOS/Solaris. Is this true ?

Section 2: Hardware

  1. What machines WILL currently run UltraLinux ?
  2. What additional hardware is supported ?
  3. What machines do not YET run UltraLinux ?
  4. What Sun machines will NEVER run UltraLinux ?
  5. Can Linux work on a Sun3 ?
  6. Where can I find more information on older Sun hardware ?
  7. Where can I find out lots more information about Sun stuff ?
  8. Can I use every Weitek POWER uP chip ?
  9. Can I use ISA/PCI cards from my PC on my (Ultra)SPARC machine ?
  10. How can I make my JavaStation/Engine to work ?
  11. How can I make my Netra X1 / Txx to work ?
  12. How can I make a Linux X-Terminal from my old SPARCstation ?
  13. Can I use the ISDN capabilities of my SPARCstation ?
  14. Is there support for audio on my SPARC ?
  15. Can I select the internal speaker or line-out for audio ?

Section 3: Distributions

What distributions are available for UltraLinux ?

  1. Aurora SPARC Linux
  2. Debian GNU/Linux
  3. Gentoo Linux
  4. Linux-Mandrake
  5. PLD GNU/Linux
  6. Red Hat Linux
  7. Splack Linux
  8. SuSE Linux
  9. UltraPenguin

Section 4: Building

What operating systems can I use to build a kernel ?

  1. What tools do I need to compile an UltraLinux kernel from SunOS ?
  2. What tools do I need to compile a new kernel on an UltraSPARC ?
  3. Why does the program "make" complain about a non-existent sparc64-linux-gcc ?
  4. Can a just grab the latest Linux source tree and compile it ?
  5. Where can I find the most recent kernel anyway ?
  6. When I configure the kernel what options should I choose ?
  7. How do I compile the kernel for UltraLinux ?
  8. What should I do after a new kernel has been compiled ?
  9. Do I need to compress the kernel ?
  10. What do I need to put in the root directory ?
  11. What is this RPM stuff people keep talking about ?
  12. How do I set up init ?
  13. What do I need to get networking running ?
  14. How do I get YP (NIS) working ?
  15. What do I need to do to get X11r6 running ?

Section 5: Booting

  1. What is a boot prompt, and how can I get to it ?
  2. Why can't I see "ok" at the boot prompt ?
  3. How can I see all the PROM parameters ?
  4. What other commands are available at the boot prompt ?
  5. How can I boot directly from the floppy/CD-ROM/Tape Drive ?
  6. How can I eject my floppy disk or CD ?
  7. How can I set it to automatically boot from a different device ?
  8. How can I unset a PROM parameter ?
  9. How can I install UltraLinux software from the network ?
  10. How do I set up RARP so I can boot my Sun via the network ?
  11. ARP/RARP do not seem to be working on my boot server?
  12. My ethernet address is shown as "ff:ff:ff:ff.." and my machine can't boot from the network.
  13. I have a dead/corrupted/password protected NVRAM chip.
  14. How do I set up a tftp server to boot from ?
  15. What boot image will the client ask from the network ?
  16. Is there an easy way to set up the network boot image structure ?
  17. Running a tftp boot server doesn't seem to work ?
  18. By using what commands can I boot UltraLinux from the network ?
  19. My Sun doesn't seem to understand the 'boot net' command.
  20. Booting over the network responds: "receive failed: The file just loaded does not appear to be executable".
  21. Booting over the network responds: "is not executable", or: "not in correct format!".
  22. Booting over the network still doesn't work...
  23. How can I connect a machine for an installation via a serial cable ?
  24. Why does the system respond "Inconsistent console" when using a serial console ?
  25. When using a serial console, the installation stops after booting from the network ?
  26. Why can't my sparc64 boot from floppy ?
  27. Why can't my Ultra5/10 boot when I have more than 512 MB of memory installed ?
  28. Why does the system respond "Wrong label" when I reboot it after installation ?
  29. Why does the system respond "Could not find /vmlinux.." when I reboot it after installation ?
  30. Fdisk dies with a segfault during partitioning.
  31. Why does the system respond "Bad Magic Number in Disk Label" after replacing a (boot) HDD ?
  32. The PROM refuses to recognize my disk.
  33. The kernel is panicking, or refuses to boot.
  34. Why does the system respond "the file just loaded doesn't appear to be executable" after installing SILO ?
  35. Do I need to run silo every time I change my silo.conf ?
  36. SILO doesn't time out before booting the kernel.
  37. I've changed silo.conf, rebooted, and the system now responds: "boot: ..wrong syntax..".
  38. I'm still having lots of problems with SILO.
  39. Why does my machine only boot properly when I hard-boot it ?
  40. How can I boot from a mirrored RAID disk?

Section 6: Running

Is there an emergency boot disk anywhere ?

  1. Why can't I compile certain software on my sparc64 ?
  2. How can I create a bootable CD ?
  3. How do I find out kernel state information ?
  4. How do I set up SunOS/Solaris emulation ?
  5. Why do I get: "crt0: no /dev/zero" when running a SunOS program ?
  6. Running a SunOS executable gives: "ld.so not found"
  7. How can I mount my Sun UFS partition read/write ?
  8. Is it possible to run Netscape ?
  9. Why won't my older program run under newer distributions ?
  10. The serial ports don't seem to work well.
  11. Setserial reports "unknown UART", or "Cannot get serial info: Invalid argument".
  12. Why do init and getty keep complaining when there is no keyboard or monitor connected ?
  13. Why don't I get a login screen when a serial terminal is attached ?
  14. Why can't I login as "root" on my headless machine ?
  15. How can I send the "Stop-A" key combination from a serial terminal ?
  16. After booting the Red Hat release, the "Stop-A" key combination doesn't work.
  17. The parallel port doesn't work and I get an "Operation not supported by device".
  18. After booting the Red Hat version, networking doesn't work.
  19. Why do all the network interfaces have the same hardware ethernet address ?
  20. How can I force my network interface to a certain speed ?
  21. Why doesn't HTTPD start correctly on my machine ?
  22. How can I use multiple video cards ?
  23. Why does the X server report: "Fatal server error: ..." ?
  24. Why doesn't XFree86 version 4.0x work on my UltraSPARC ?
  25. How can I get the mouse to work properly with XFree86 version 4.x ?
  26. How can I change the default resolution?
  27. How can I get XFree86 to use the acceleration functions of my Elite3D ?
  28. Why doesn't xviddetect work properly on by Sbus/UPA based (Ultra)SPARC ?
  29. Why does the X server report "Permission denied" upon restarting X ?
  30. Why do I see snow when the TCX framebuffer is being accessed ?
  31. Xscreensaver and xlock give a white background instead of black.
  32. X doesn't work anymore after upgrading from kernel 2.0.x to 2.2.x
  33. How can I stop the system starting X every time after booting ?
  34. X runs very slow on my older machine, what can I do ?
  35. I have heard that I can change the OEM logo on my machine.