SPARC-HOWTO.

SPARC-HOWTO.
Lionel, trollhunter Bouchpan-Lerust-Ju�ry <trollhunter@lin�
uxfr.org>

v0.0.3 November 2000

The SPARC family of microprocessors is a very good implementation of
the RISC design, SPARC based workstations are usually very well engi�
neered products, thus Linux on SPARC is a winning combination both in
performance and ease of use. Actually this combination is not as wid�
spread as the Linux/x86; this HOWTO should help you step by step to
make an informed decision: try it you will not regret it.
______________________________________________________________________

Table of Contents

1. Preface.

2. SPARC, which one ?

2.1 Sun SPARC
2.2 Super SPARC
2.3 Micro SPARC
2.4 Hyper SPARC
2.5 Ultra SPARC
2.6 Deciphering the CPUs
2.6.1 Ross Technology.
2.6.2 SM modules.
2.6.3 Cypress.

3. Buying a SPARC workstation.

3.1 Gaigning a visual familiarity with SPARC hardware
3.2 Sun made hardware or clones ?
3.3 Where to buy.
3.4 Checklist

4. Linux on SPARC: 2 kernels.

5. Choosing a distribution.

5.1 Caldera Open Linux.
5.2 Debian GNU/Linux.
5.3 Linux Mandrake.
5.4 RedHat Linux.
5.5 Slackware Linux.
5.6 SuSe Linux.
5.7 TurboLinux.

6. Working with the Openboot.

6.1 What is the OpenBoot?
6.2 Diagnostics commands.
6.3 Boot commands.
6.4 Misc commands.

7. Hard drive buses.

7.1 SCSI-SCA.
7.2 EIDE.
7.3 FC-AL

8. CDROM: specific settings.

9. SILO.

10. Keyboard and mouse.

11. X Window.

12. SMP.

13. The sound.

14. Serial port.

15. Ressources.

15.1 Information sites.
15.2 Auction sites.

16. Thanks.
17. Copyright, Disclaimer and Trademarks

17.1 Copyright.
17.2 Administrativia.

18. Revision History.

______________________________________________________________________

1. Preface.

This document is a step by step guide meant to provide information in
order to help you running Linux on SPARC based workstations, As these
computers are quite different from PCs there is an hardware section,
this should help you on understanding, how they work, what to expect
from the various CPUs and models.

I am not a SPARC specialist, nor a Solaris or Linux guru, I am just
someone who is realy found of well engineered product, and I wish to
help you in choosing your hardware and finding information. Thus I
have tried to write down this document in order to ease your path.

I hope this document will help you and you will have a lot of fun with
your SPARC Workstation.

2. SPARC, which one ?

We are only dealing with, SPARC based workstations, in order to check,
just type uname -m command and you should read something like sparc4x
where x is blank,c,d,m,u if the system runs Solaris, or sparc for 32
bits SPARC architectures and sparc64 for 64 bits SPARC architectures
if it runs Linux. 2.2.x

SPARC stands for Scalable Processor ARChitecture, it derives from
research done between 1984-1988 on the RISC architecture at UC
Berkeley. It exists 3 versions of this archiecture, SPARC-V7, SPARC-
V8 ( 32 bits ) and SPARC-V9 ( 64 bits ). As you are likely to
encounter a lot of implementations of the SPARC architecture, I have
summarized the main features of theses processors.

2.1. Sun SPARC

This is quite obsolete, it is an implementation of the SPARC-V7 ; its
main feature are an Integer unit ( IU ), an external Floating Point
Unit ( FPU ), an unified data + instruction 64KB direct associative
cache, and an Memory Managment Unit ( MMU ). There is a 4 stage
pipeline for the integer instructions ( fetch F, decode D, exec E,
update WB ) FPU and IU are synchronized

2.2. Super SPARC

This is Texas Instrument and Sun's brainchild, it is usualy found at
clok rates around 50Mhz featuring up to 1MB L2 cache, it is available
both on single and dual processor modules ( SparcStation 10 and
SparcStation 20 ). The higher clock frequency I have encountered is
60Mhz.

On a technical point of view this is a SPARC-V8 implementation, it is
a superscalar processor, having 2 caches, one for instruction the
other one for data.

� The 20kB instruction cache is a 5 way associative.

� The 16KB data cache is 4 way associative.

2.3. Micro SPARC

This is once again Texas Instrument and Sun's brainchild, you can find
it in the SparcStation Classic, SparcStation LX, at frequency up to
50Mhz. Its derivative the Micro SPARC II can be found in SparcStation
4, SparcStation 5 at frequencies up to 110Mhz.

On a technical point of view, its main features are a high level of
integration, having 2 caches, one for instructions, the other one for
data.

� A 4KB instruction direct associative cache.

� A 2KB data direct associative cache.

It is not possible to had an L2 cache. If wish to learn more about
the MicroSPARC processor you can browse Sun's Ultra SPARC ressources.

2.4. Hyper SPARC

This processor was introduced by ROSS in 1993, it is usualy found in
the SparcStation 10, and SparcStation 20, at frequencies up to 150Mhz
( I have heard of 200Mhz dual processor modules, but Have not
witnessed one yet ). It can be found on single or dual processor
modules.

On a technical point of view it is an implementation of the SPARC-V8,
it is superscalar. It can be found with L2 cache up to 512KB

2.5. Ultra SPARC

The Ultra SPARC processor is an extension of the SPARC-V9
architecture, it is a 64 bits processor, it features some video
processing instructions. It is found in all the workstation whose name
start with Ultra.

The Ultra SPARC II is an improvement of the Ultra SPARC, the Ultra
SPARCIII is actually the second generation of Ultra SPARC processors,
it was first introduced in the SunBlade 1000 Workstation. If wish to
learn more about the UltraSPARC processors you can browse Sun's Ultra
SPARC ressources.

You may read the CPU-Design-HOWTO, this HOWTO has a lot of interesting
links when it comes to studying the CPUs.

To summarize, the 32 bits workstations are the:

� The sun4 workstation is the sun4/330 model.

� The sun4c workstations are the SparcStation 1,2, IPC and IPX
models.

� The sun4m workstations are the SparcStation 5, 10 and 20.

Only the SparcStation 10 and SparcStation 20 are SMP capable: up to
2 CPU modules.

For more information on the SparcStation 5, 10, 20 you can read Sun's
documentation online or download it available.

The following model have an 64 bits UltraSPARC architecture ( sun4u ).
SunUltra 1, 2, 5, 10, 30, 60, 80 and SunBlade 1000. The SunUltra 2,
60, 80 and SunBlade 1000 are SMP capable, with the Ultra 80 and
SunBlade 1000 accepting up to 4 CPU modules, the SunUltra 2 and 60
accepting only 2 CPU modules.

The SunBlade 1000 is the latest one featuring Sun's latest marvel the
Ultra III CPU, at a premium price of course. You can have a summary
of the UltraWorkstation still in production at Sun's website.

A lot of information has been compiled in the Sun hardware reference
that is found on AcesHardware's website, or on SunHelp 's website.

2.6. Deciphering the CPUs

At first, a reference like SM61 or RT-200-D-125/512 seems to be, to
say the least, quite cryptic. Actually, understanding theses
references is really easy.

2.6.1. Ross Technology.

Theses CPUs's naming scheme is RT-a00-b-freq/cache where

� a is a digit:

� 1 SparcStation 10.

� 2 SparcStation 20.

� 6 SPARC MP600 ( not exactly a workstation ).

� b is a letter:

� D Dual CPU.

� Q Quad CPU.

� S Single CPU.

� freq The frequency expressed in Megahertz.

� cache The amount of cache memory expressed in Kilobytes.

When theses modules are in a workstations the naming convention is
HSxy, for example ywing is a SparcStation 20 HS22, thus it is easier
to have a look inside the workstation.

2.6.2. SM modules.

This table is extracted from the FAQABOSS

______________________________________________________________________
Name Speed( MHz ) Cache( MB ) Number of SuperSparc
Processors Series

SM20 33 0 1 I
SM30 36 0 1 I
SM40 40 0 1 I
SM41 40 1 1 I
SM50 50 0 1 I
SM51 50 1 1 I
SM512 50 1 2 I
SM51-2 50 2 1 I
SM61 60 1 1 I
SM61-2 60 2 1 I
SM71 75 1 1 II
SM71-2 75 2 1 II
SM81 85 1 1 II
SM81-5 85 2 1 II
______________________________________________________________________

Warning: the SM100 is a RT-600-D-40

2.6.3. Cypress.

Cypress manufactured SPARC compliants processors; AFAIK their naming
scheme is CYnnn.

As you can see, this is easy to understand.

3. Buying a SPARC workstation.

You have decided to buy a SPARC based workstation, now you can tell
what CPU each model sports, but can you tell how that particuliar
model looks like? How its is inside?

Do not worry, this section will help you on that topic as well as
providing you with some hints on how to inspect and test the hardware.

3.1. Gaigning a visual familiarity with SPARC hardware

PC hardware is everywhere and usualy one is quite familiar with it,
this is not exactly the case with SPARC based hardware, even more when
it comes to the innards of a workstation. The good news is that it
exists some sites on the web, where you can find pictures of Sun
hardware, with some very detailed shots, thus you should be able to
instantly identify the model and its condition prior to buy it. The
two main site where I usualy go are:

� sun In Sun's database, you can find technical data as well as
picture of some of Sun's product, the pictures are crisp, and the
hardware is always at its best, this is technicaly interesting, in
order to compare brand new hardware and the used one that is usualy
featured on the two sites below.

� HAL This site features very detailed pictures of a lot of hardware,
from CPU modules to Servers, even mice.

� obsolyte This site has different pictures, it is very useful too.

3.2. Sun made hardware or clones ?

On the one hand, it is very easy to find information on Sun hardware,
while it can be difficult to find it for clone systems on the other
hand it should be more fun to work with exotic hardware.

Clone systems have been or are still manufactured, at least by:

� Fujitsu.

� Ross

� Tadpole/RDI manufactures SPARC based laptops.

� Tatung

� Toshiba, used to manufacture SPARC based laptops: The AS1000.

3.3. Where to buy.

Of course if you buy first hand hardware everything should be fine,
but if you decide to go for second hand hardware, you will have to
decide how you want to buy it, and you should be able to test it by
yourself.

Second hand hardware can be brought from Sun as refurbished hardware,
at auction websites, or in specialised stores, or directly from
companys that upgrade their hardware.

3.4. Checklist

When it comes to second hand hardware one has to be as cautious as
possible about the source, and the condition of that hardware.

For the source of the hardware, if you can track it, it is a very good
point. If you can't track it, it is up to you to decide if you trust
the seller or not ( If the seller cannot give you the reference of the
hardwre and if, obviously he/she is clueless about Sun hardware, you
should switch to condition red ).

Another interesting point is to see if check is accepted as a
payement.

If you can check the hardware before buying it then first have a
general look at it, search for cracks, for stains; check the
connector's pin. If this first inspection is OK, then ask to see the
inside, look for spills, watch carefuly the connectors, then if it is
OK ask to see it running, watch carefully boot messages, issue the
dmesg|more or if it runs Solaris you can issue the more
/var/adm/messages command, and also very important listen to your
computer, do you hear unusual noises? Does it smell OK?. Then enter
the OpenBoot by the stop+a command and run some tests ( see the
OpenBoot section ). When you have decided to purchase it, it is very
important that you always make sure that the workstation you are
purchasing is the one you have tested: always keep an eye on it, do
not let someone go to the backoffice with it for example, do not
accept to leave without your workstation.

Then, when you are at home, recheck it as if it was the first time you
see it. If it comes with CDROM drive, try to mount/umount a few CDs
and read them in order to check that device. If there is a floppy disk
read/write/format a few floppys, this should be a good test.

Of course, it exists tools to automaticaly test the hardware, but
usualy you do not have them when you need them, thus the script below
relies only on ressources provided by a Linux base system.

You should run the following script for three days, basicaly it is
going to use the CDROM, floppy and hard drive, and to reboot the
computer every 3 hours. This should stress it,

______________________________________________________________________
#
# Enter this in the crontab(5)
# run the torture.sh script every 3 hours if possible
#
0 */3 * * * /root/torture.sh
______________________________________________________________________

Where torture.sh is

______________________________________________________________________
#!/bin/sh

#
# these are for controlling the loops
# the CDLIMITS and FDLIMITS
# are for the CD and FD loops
#
CPT=1
CDLIMIT=3
FDLIMIT=10

#
# to which devices are
# CDROM and floppy attached
#
CDROM=/dev/sr0
FLOPPY=/dev/fd0

#
# where is the program we
# intend to compile

PATH=/path_to_big_package_to_compile

#
# this section si meant to
# test the CDROM and floppy drives
# comment what you do not need to
# test

while [ $CPT -le $CDLIMIT ]
do
#
# CDROM drive
#

mount -rt iso9660 $CDROM /cdrom
find /cdrom -exec cat {} \; >>/dev/null 2>/dev/null &
umount /cdrom
CPT=$(($CPT+1))
done

#
# floppy drive
#
CPT=1
while [ $CPT -le $FDLIMIT ]
do
mke2fs -c $FLOPPY >/dev/null 2>&1
mount -t ext2 $FLOPPY /floppy
cd /bin/
cp dd ps echo sh /floppy
find /floppy -exec cat {} \; >>/dev/null 2>/dev/null &
umount /floppy
CPT=$(($CPT+1))
done

#
# The big, intensive
# compilation
#

cd $PATH

#
# now compile
#
make

#
#
# we remove every .a .o .s and every executable
#

find $PATH -name "*.[aos]" -exec rm -f {} \; >/dev/null 2>&1
find $PATH -exec test -x {} \; -exec rm -f {} \; >/dev/null 2>&1

#
# time to reboot
#
reboot
______________________________________________________________________

Of course you should run this script once in order to know how much
time it takes to complete, this is just an idea on how to automate
things.

4. Linux on SPARC: 2 kernels.

Actually Linux on SPARC architecture comes in two flavors:

� A 32 bits kernel for the Sun SPARC, Super SPARC, Micro SPARC and
Hyper SPARC Processors.

� A 64 bits kernel for UltraSPARC based workstations.

In both case most applications run in 32 bit ( 32 bit userland ).
There is a comprehensive FAQ on UltraLinux's website.

5. Choosing a distribution.

You are very lucky, it seems that you can pick the one you like. In
order to help you with this task here are some links, that should help
you to make an informed decision.

5.1. Caldera Open Linux.

The 2.2 release of OpenLinux for SPARC platform can be downloaded at

ftp://ftp.openlinux.org/pub/sparclinux/

You can join the mailing list by sending a mail to <
[email protected] > with subscribe sparclinux in the body.

5.2. Debian GNU/Linux.

Debian GNU/Linux runs on SPARC platform; you can find a lot of
informations about this port at the http://www.debian.org/ports/sparc/
webpage

You can join the mailing list by sending a mail to < debian-sparc-
[email protected] > with subscribe as the subject.

5.3. Linux Mandrake.

Mandrake corporate server for SPARC can be downloaded at
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/Mandrake/iso/corporate-1.0/sparc

It consists of two ISOs, the core distribution is the *inst.iso one
and the other one, *ext.iso, is the extension CD.

5.4. RedHat Linux.

The latest RedHat Linux distriution is the 6.2; you can download it at
ftp://rufus.w3.org/linux/redhat/redhat-6.2/sparc/ for example.

The mailing list can be joined by sending a mail at

< [email protected] > with subscribe as the subject.

At the time of this writting RedHat has announced its intention not to
support anymore SPARC Linux in the future.

5.5. Slackware Linux.

This distribution is unsupported at the time of this writting, and is
not available as ISO. You can download it at
ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/unsupported/protopkg/

5.6. SuSe Linux.

The SuSe Linux 7.0 distribution is quite complete, you have 4 ISOs to
download. You can grab it at the following URL:
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/sparc

You can join the mailing list by sending a blank mail to < suse-sparc-
[email protected] >

5.7. TurboLinux.

TurboLinux Workstation 6.1 for intel ships with a SPARC developper
release CD.

To install Linux on a SPARC based computer, should be strightforward
if you follow the informations provided by your distribution.

To boot from a floppy drive you have to have an install image on a
floppy disk and to issue the boot floppy from the OpenBoot.

If your workstation does not have a CDROM or a floppy drive, you can
always try to perform a network installation using NFS as explained by
this French document: http://www.linux-
france.org/article/materiel/sparc-install/Sparc-netinstall.html .
Basicaly, you have to set up an NFS server and to boot your
workstation using the boot net vmlinux nfsroot=192.168.52.12:/tmp in
order to access the image that is exported by the 192.168.52.12
workstation on the /tmp directory.

6. Working with the Openboot.

In this section, I will give you an overview of what is the OpenBoot,
and you will be given the main commands you need to know in order to
test your hardware and to install Linux.

6.1. What is the OpenBoot?

If you are used to PC hardware, you are used to interact with its
BIOS. SPARC computers have an Openoot, it may seem to be like your
BIOS, but it is actually far more powerfull. The Openoot performs the
following tasks:

� Testing and initializing the hardware.

� Starting the operating System.

� Giving you acces to a set of tools to program and to debug it.

The programming language is FCode, if you can program the Forth
langage, you can program it.

In this section, we will juste use a small set of the OpenBoot's
capabilities, in order to test hardware and to boot the system. First
you have to enter in the OpenBoot, just hit the stop and a keys
simultaneously. Then you should see a ok prompt, if instead you see
the > prompt then type n. Now you can proceed to the next section.

6.2. Diagnostics commands.

The OpenBoot, gives you a lot of commands to test and to gather
information about your hardware.

� .version Displays version and date of the startup PROM.

� banner You will see the banner, that is displayed at power-on. It
is useful to gather some data about CPUs.

� pcia-probe-list Test PCI on computers that have a PCI bus.

� module-info This will display the Buses clockspeed, and processors
frequency and amount of cache.

� probe-scsi This will test all devices connected to the on board
SCSI controler.

� probe-scsi-all This will test all devices connected to all the SCSI
controlers.

� show-devs This displays all installed and probed devices.

� show-sbus Use this, if you just want to display a list of installed
and probed SBus devices.

� test-all This will test all devices in the system that have a self
test program.

� test floppy If a floppy drive is installed, it will test it
reminding you to have a formated floppy disk inside.

� test-memory If the system diag-switch? is set to true, this will
test the memory.

� test net This will test the network interfaces

� watch-aui This will test the AUI ethernet link. You will see '.'
for good packets and 'X" for bad ones. Strike any key to abort.

� watch-clock This will test the real time clock chip, it will tick
once a second. To stop this test strike any key.

� watch-net This will check the network connection ( both AUI and TP
). You will see '.' for good packets and 'X" for bad ones. Strike
any key to abort.

� watch-net-all This will test all Ethernet interfaces. You will see
'.' for good packets and 'X" for bad ones. Strike any key to abort.
When you abort one, it will test the next one.

� watch-tpe This will check the TPE ethernet interface. You will see
'.' for good packets and 'X" for bad ones. Strike any key to abort.

6.3. Boot commands.

The OpenBoot allows you to boot from various devices, the command you
are the more likely to enter are below.

� boot Boot kernel from default device.

� boot cdrom Boot kernel from CDROM drive.

� boot net-tpe Boot kernel from network urnel from CDROM drive, this
is the command you are the more likely to type when installing
Linux.

� boot net Boot kernel from network using auto-selected interface.

� boot net-aui Boot kernel from network using AUI interface.

� boot net-tpe Boot kernel from network using TPE interface.

� boot tape Boot default file from tape.

6.4. Misc commands.

� eject-floppy Ejects the floppy.

� power-off Poweroff the workstation.

You can poweroff your workstation, when you are working with the
OpenBoot : just type power-off

For more informations on the OpenBoot you can read it's FAQ

7. Hard drive buses.

Depending on their architecture, the worstations are likely to feature
one of the following hard drive buses.

7.1. SCSI-SCA.

An SCSI connector is located at the rear of the Workstation; the SCA
chanel is found on the internal bus of the SPARC Worstations, it can
be basicaly seen as an SCSI bus that provides power supply and assigns
SCSI ID to the peripherals.

7.2. EIDE.

This is found for example in an Ultra 5 or Ultra 10 workstations

7.3. FC-AL

It is used by the SunBlade 1000 workstation.

8. CDROM: specific settings.

The easiest way to install linux on SPARC workstation is to use a
CDROM. If your workstation does not have a CDROM you can plug an
external SCSI CDROM drive, but there are two things to do or you are
doomed to fail:

� When you issue the boot cdrom command, the CDROM is mapped to ID6.

� Your CDROM player's block size should be setted up on 512.

As a rule of thumb, nearly all CDROM drives can be assigned to ID
#6 but be carefull about the block size setting.

9. SILO.

The Sparc Improved Boot LOader ( SILO ), is the boot loader that is
used in the SPARC architecture. It allows you to boot Linux, Solaris
or SunOS. It can load a Linux kernel from ext2, iso9660, UFS or ROMFS.
From the SILO's README:

This is the first attempt at a complete boot loader for Linux on the
Sparc. Because of the lack of space on the bootblock, we have to do
it in two steps, the first step is a very simple loader based on Peter
Zaitcev's silo (we will call this the first stage loader) which should
fit in 512B and its sole purpose is to load a more complete bootstrap
loader, herein refered to as the second stage boot loader. The cool
thing about the second stage loader we implemented is that it makes
use of the ext2 library (provided with the ext2fs tools) and some ufs
code, and thus allows the loader to access any file on a ext2 fs and
ufs, uses silo.conf, handles gunzipping and a lot of other things.
This is different from Linux/i386 lilo which needs a map for each
kernel. In silo we just keep one map file for the second stage loader,
we don't expect you to be changing the second stage loader on your
daily routine (you can do so, you will just need to use a tool to
reinstall the maps).

Actually, IMHO it is easier to use than LILO.

10. Keyboard and mouse.

Most of the sun4m workstation have a special connector for the
keyboard. In this case the mouse is connected indifferently to left or
the right side of the keyboard. Some workstations have a PS2
connector, it is very easy to spot the difference. The keyboards you
are the more likely to encounter are the type4 and type5.

11. X Window.

XFree, usualy, runs fine on theses systems. The XServer for the Sun
hardware should be the Xsun, XsunMono or Xsun24 one.

12. SMP.

Ouaich, SMP is supported, and I am sure that ROSS's dual CPU modules
are supported as you can see by yourself:

______________________________________________________________________

piou@ywing:~ > cat /proc/cpuinfo
cpu : ROSS HyperSparc RT625 or RT626
fpu : ROSS HyperSparc combined IU/FPU
promlib : Version 3 Revision 2
prom : 2.25
type : sun4m
ncpus probed : 2
ncpus active : 2
Cpu0Bogo : 125.33
Cpu1Bogo : 125.33
MMU type : ROSS HyperSparc
invall : 0
invmm : 0
invrnge : 0
invpg : 0
contexts : 4096
CPU0 : online
CPU1 : online
piou@ywing:~ >
______________________________________________________________________

The SparcStation 10 and SparcStations 20 are SMP capable machine and
according to the FAQABOSS the following combinations are known to work
:

� 2xSM40 ( model 402 )

� 2xSM41 ( model 412 )

� 2xSM51 ( model 512 )

� 2xSM512 ( model 514 )

� 2xSM61 ( model 612 )

� 2xSM71 ( model 712 )

� 2xSM81 ( model 812 )

And, as stated earlier, CPU modules in SparcStations 10 and can run a
different clock speeds, the following ones __SHOULD__ work:

� 2xSM50

� SM41, SM51

� SM41, SM61

� SM51, SM61

� SM71, SM81

If you want to learn more about SMP and Linux you can read the SMP-
HOWTO

How does it performs? Well, it is fast, really fast. Some of the java
Demos can run faster on a dual HyperSparc 125Mhz 128MB ( ywing ) than
on a dual celeron BP6 433@433Mhz 192MB ( calimero ). The same applies
for the Gimp. When it comes to compiling calimero runs faster than
ywing. Both computers running 2.2.16 kernel and calimero's hard disk
subsystem is full SCSI.

One important detail when you plan to have different CPU modules in
your computer is to have the same kind of modules, you cannot mix
SuperSparc and HyperSparc for example, but you can have an odd number
of CPUs, for example 3. They are said to be able to run modules at
different clock speed as written in this article form AcesHardware ,
but I have not witnessed it.

I plan to upgrade ywing to 4 CPU in order to see how the performance
scales.

13. The sound.

The sound is supposed to work under Linux, using the ioctl
application. On my SparcStation 20, the sound works fine under
Solaris8, but I have not yet managed to hear anything under Linux (
The Sound of Silence? ).

You can read the Linux/Sparc audio webpage at sparcaudio for more
informations.

14. Serial port.

Sun workstations ususaly have 2 serial ports, but on sun4m workstation
there is usualy only one serial connector at the rear, you need a
special Y cable in order to have access to both ports.

15. Ressources.

The following sites are given for your information, I am independent
from them and does not represent them. If you would like to suggest a
website or to add any information do not hesitate to email me.

15.1. Information sites.

� Ace's Hardware: http://www.aceshardware.com/ An hardware
information site having a SPARC area, actually the whole site runs
on a SparcStation 20 SM71, 128MB ! Ouaich, definitively not an
Intel clone.

� ArsTechnica: http://arstechnica.com/cpu/index.html ArsTechnica is
an information website with a good CPU section.

� Black-Cube: http://www.black-cube.net/Sun/ Pictures of various
SPARC hardware : IMHO great site.

� LinuxDoc: http://www.linuxdoc.org homesite of the LDP.

� Obsolyte: http://www.obsolyte.com/sunPICS/ Nice pictures from
various sun Hardware.

� SPARC International, Inc. http://www.sparc.org/ As the name
implies, a lot of information about SPARC architecture.

� Sun: http://docs.sun.com/ the starting node to access documentation
on Sun Microsystems website.

� SunHelp: http://sunhelp.org A good source of information about Sun
Hardware and Solaris OS. Has a lot of links and good documentation
on site.

� UltraLinux: http://www.ultralinux.org/ If you need information
about the Linux Kernel on SPARC architecture it is a very good
place: "Bring your penguin into the Sun".

15.2. Auction sites.

Among the various Auction websites available on the net you can try
theses ones. Remember to be very cautious when you purchase hardware (
see the Buying a SPARC workstation section. )

� Ebay: http://www.ebay.com Ebay, and its regional sites have got a
lot of Workstations.

� Ibazar: http://www.ibazar.com/ The French Ibazar site has ususaly a
lot of Workstations.

� Yahoo! Auctions: http://auctions.yahoo.com/ This is the well known
site.

16. Thanks.

Among the many people who showed me how great Unix and the Unix
machine can be, some people have earned a special place I would like
to thank them:

� My "Vieux matou" Michel F. Who gave me my first acount on a real
Unix machine, and took the time to answer my questions, showing me
among other things how to take advantage of the hardware's feature.

� Nathalie S. Who was always able to guess at the speed of light what
went wrong and fixed it on the fly. And took time to install the
tools I needed.

� Yves D. Who among other things always welcomed my questions, and
whose office was always open even late in the evening.

Both of them beeing real Sysadmin and teatchers from the trenches,
have a very deep knowledge and understandement of the Hardware and
Software.

17. Copyright, Disclaimer and Trademarks

17.1. Copyright.

Copyright � 2000 by Lionel, trollhunter Bouchpan-Lerust-Ju�ry. This
document may be distributed under the terms set forth in the GNU Free
Documentation Licence http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.txt
<http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.txt> .

This documentation is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but without any warranty. The information in this document is correct
to the best of my knowledge, but there's a always a chance I've made
some mistakes, so don't follow everything too blindly, especially if
it seems wrong. Nothing here should have a detrimental effect on your
computer, but just in case I take no responsibility for any damages
ocurred from the use of the information contained herein.

In this document you will encounter some commercial products and
brands. Theses products are cited for information purpose, it is not
an endorsement from the author. The trademarks belong to their
respective owners.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
Invariant Sections being : "Copyright, Disclaimer and Trademarks"
"Preface.", "SPARC, which one ?", "Buying a SPARC workstation.",
"Linux on SPARC: 2 kernels.", "Choosing a distribution.", "Working
with the Openboot.", "Hard drive buses.", "CDROM: specific
settings.quot;, "SILO.", "Keyboard and mouse.", "X Window.", "SMP.",
"The sound.", "Serial port.", "Ressources.", "Thanks.", "Revision
History.",

, with the Front-Cover Texts being "title" and "abstract." , and with
no Back-Cover Texts .

17.2. Administrativia.

This text is included in the LINUX DOCUMENTATION PROJECT
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO .

The latest version of this document is available in HTML format at

http://www.theWearables.com/mirrors/SPARC-HOWTO/SPARC-HOWTO.html If
you need a postcript file, you can grab it at
http://www.theWearables.com/mirrors/SPARC-HOWTO/SPARC-HOWTO.ps.gz

If you wish to mirror it or to translate it, please contact me.

Lionel, Trollhunter Bouchpan-Lerust-Ju�ry <[email protected]> or
at <[email protected]>

18. Revision History.

� November 2000. v0.0.3

� November 2000. First release v0.0.1