This is an unofficial Solaris 2.4 x86 FAQ. I do not know of any official FAQ for x86 but I don't want to lose this information so I will collect it here.
This is a local copy at
PPL, JINR/Dubna.
The original location of this FAQ is:
http://fiver.sns.com/solaris_x86/x86.faq.html
The FAQ is divided into the following main categories:
Sun's Main phone number for sales and serivce is 1-800-USA-4SUN.
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I'm working on a document that describes Merits of Solaris x86 and compare featureizm to other versions of Intel Unicies.
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Sun has setup an email alias. If you mail x86hcg@sun.com (no subject or message body needed) you will get the latest Solaris x86 hardware guide mailed to you. On of the Nov 94 Hardware Compatiblity Guides is available here . Keep in mind that I don't update the FAQ every time a new hardware guide comes out. Hardware drivers are updated once a month so expect to see new hardware support on a regular basis.
The Solaris Porting FAQ question and answers for porting code.
Fiver's Fiver's WWW Home page has a area call Solaris x86 Corner.
SunSoft Press Books 1995 seems to have a good listing of books for Solaris.
Other to folllow here.
Ron Ledesma has written PC Hardware Configuration Guide for DOS and Solaris x86 a well written book on setting up Solaris x86 on Intel Architecure's. I have worked with Ron in the past and I would like to compliment him on his book. The hyperlink is to the table of contents.
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The On-line Catalyst Catalogs from SunSoft contains product discriptions and third party products for x86 Solaris. TOC or General TOC
Also you may want to check Sun's Main WWW Server for any new announcements.
New site with x86 infomation is Access One Some nice support goodies for x86 Solaris and patch information.
Some pd sites for Solaris X86 Binaires and source:
ftp: server.berkeley.edu and the public directory is /pub/x86solaris. Binaries and ported source. Berkeley's FTP Server
Gnu Compilers
GCC 2.6.3 Binaries are available on sever.berkeley.edu in the /pub/x86solaris/compilers directory. Note that many sites have binaries for GCC 2.4.5 which has a fixinclude script that has bugs. Run the fixinclude script from the GCC version 2.6.3.
You may also want to check out some of these sites:
Binaries are avaiable from
sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/sun-info/solaris-x86
nic.funet.fi:/pub/unix/386ix/Solaris.x86
ftp.prz.tu-berlin.de:/pub/Solaris86/gnu
Sample drivers and driver-related information are available from
opcom.sun.ca:/pub/drivers
Any other sites that you know of please email palowoda@fiver.sns.com
and I will include them here.
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There are two sources of patches for Solaris x86. One would be the apublicly available patches or Access1's Pactch Listings or SunSolutions with a support contract. Sunsolve is available with a support contract. One can either call voice and have the patches deleivered to them through normal snail mail or obtain the patches through email or web site referenced in the the previous hyperlink.
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The ethernet number from your ethernet card would be helpfull if your on a nis net and your going to do net installs. You would like to have the ethernet number in the ethers map before you do an install. Usally the manufacture of an ethernet card will have some software that you can run under dos to display this number or sometimes you can find the ethernet number on a sticker right on the ethernet card. If this is on a standalone network you probalbly don't need to know the ethernet addrees. Don't confuse this with the IP addrees.
Bandwidth of your montior and video card are important. During the install the install process is going to ask you for the size of your monitor and what vertical resolution you want to drive the monitor at. Note that in the update disk documentation they give a handy dandy monitor resolution bandwidth for monitors in the appendix. You may want to check this out. See other references on video cards and monitors throughout the faq.
The install process will ask you about your mouse type.
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Of coarse there is Access1 Site Questions and Answers type site. Also online magazine.
Doing Buisness with Sun should give you information of purchasing Solaris x86 and other products.
I will update this section as more sites come up on the Web. Anybody find any good sites email palowoda@fiver.sns.com and I will include them in this faq.
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The best detailed list of third party products for Solaris x86 is through Solaris x86 Solutions Showcase - Listing by Company/Product
Of coarse this is by no means the only list I will leave room here for others as I find them.
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Wabi 2.0 seems to be one of the more popular reasons for running Solaris x86. I would guess the the Sun Wabi Technical Knowledge Base would be the best place to reference the latest questions about Wabi 2.0.
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OpenLook is the default GUI. Although the libraries for Motif are installed you must purchase the Motif Window Manger (mwm) as a seprate product. If you purchase the Proworks (tm) compilers the mwm window manager is included. Other than that you will have to wait for CDE. Now that is a nice addicting product.
Update on CDE:
CDE is available for the EA (Early Access Customers) for Solaris 2.5. Based on Motif 1.2.3 it easily fits in with openwindows. The xdm login screen has an option to allow you to select a openwindows environment or the CDE (Motifish) style gui. After using it for a couple of weeks it is very appealing. Be prepared to set aside 50megs (developers install) for CDE itself. I tried CDE mounted on the network it just wasn't worth it. Slows it up too much.
kdmconfig
Actually devconfig is a menu frontend to kdmconfig and is much easier to use.
First thing you want to do is setup your .xinitrc in your home directory. My .xinitrc looks something like this:
-------cut here-----
xrdb $OPENWINHOME/lib/Xdefaults # Load Default X11 resource database
if [ -f $HOME/.Xdefaults ]; then
xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xdefaults # Load Users X11 resource database
fi
$OPENWINHOME/lib/openwin-sys # OpenWindows system initialization
eval `locale_env -env` # Set Locale Environment
if [ "$OW_WINDOW_MANAGER" ]; then # Alternate Window Manager
xsetroot -def # Clear root window
$OW_WINDOW_MANAGER & wmpid=$! # Start Alt Window Manager
dsdm & # OpenLook Drop Site Database
unset OW_WINDOW_MANAGER
else
sleep 15 & pid=$! # OpenLook Window Manager
olvwm -syncpid $pid & wmpid=$!
wait $pid # Pause until olwm inits
fi
if [ -x $HOME/.openwin-init ]; then
$HOME/.openwin-init # Custom OpenWindows tools
else
$OPENWINHOME/lib/openwin-init # Default OpenWindows tools
fi
wait $wmpid # Wait for wm (key client) to exit
------Cut here -----
The only change in this .xinitrc over the normal system Xinitrc is
that I changed the Openlook olwm to "olvwm" The open look
virtual window manager.
Than you want to setup your .openwin-init, .openwin-menu and .openwin-menu-progrms in your home directory. Essentually you can copy these files from /usr/openwin/lib/openwin-xxx into your home directory and modify them to you likeing.
Below are examples of mine, wiether they are cool or not is subject to opinion.
-------- .openwin-init ----- cut here -----
#!/bin/sh
# .openwin-init - OpenWindows initialization script.
# WARNING: This file is automatically generated.
# Any changes you make here will be lost!
export DISPLAY
# Test for pathological case -- no $DISPLAY set
if [ "${DISPLAY}" = "" ]; then
DISPLAY=:0
fi
# Figure out the proper host/server number
BASE=`echo $DISPLAY | sed -e 's/:.*//'`
DISPLAYNO=`echo $DISPLAY | sed -e 's/.*://' -e 's/\..*//'`
BASEDISPLAY=${BASE}:${DISPLAYNO}
SETDISPLAYSCREEN() {
DISPLAY=${BASEDISPLAY}.$1
if winsysck x11 ; then
:
else
echo No display available for screen $1
exit 1
fi
}
# Note: toolwait is a utility to control client startup.
# For more information, see the toolwait(1) man page.
#
# Start clients on screen 0
#
SETDISPLAYSCREEN 0
#
toolwait /usr/openwin/bin/xterm -T 80x40 -n 80x40 -ls -geometry 80x40+500-86 -fg yellow -bg darkorchid
toolwait cmdtool -Wp 652 0 -Ws 603 96 -WP 692 957 +Wi -C
toolwait oclock -geometry +370+0
toolwait xterm -ls -bg saddlebrown -fg white -name XT_2 -geometry 80x40+0+170
toolwait xterm -ls -name XT_1 -geometry 80x25+750+170
toolwait xterm -ls -bg khaki -fg black -name XT_30 -geometry 80x25+750+540
----- end of .openwin-init ------- cut here -----
------- .openwin-menu ---- cut here ----- # # @(#)openwin-menu 23.18 93/01/11 openwin-menu # # OpenWindows default root menu file - top level menu # "Workspace" TITLE "Programs" MENU $HOME/.openwin-menu-programs "Utilities" MENU $OPENWINHOME/lib/openwin-menu-utilities "Local Progs" MENU $HOME/.openwin-local-programs "Properties..." PROPERTIES SEPARATOR "Workstation Info..." exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/wsinfo "Help..." exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/helpopen handbooks/top.toc.handbook SEPARATOR "Exit..." EXIT ----- end of .openwin-menu ------- cut here -----
------ .openwin-menu-programs --- cut hre -------------------- "Programs" TITLE PIN "File Manager..." DEFAULT exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/filemgr "Text Editor..." exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/textedit "Mail Tool..." exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/mailtool "Calendar Manager..." exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/cm SEPARATOR "Wabi..." exec wabi "Mosaic" exec /usr/local/bin/Mosaic "XMcd Player" exec /usr/local/bin/xmcd "Xpaint" exec /usr/local/bin/xpaint "xv" exec /usr/local/bin/xv SEPARATOR "Command Tool..." exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/cmdtool "Shell Tool..." exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/shelltool "Xterm 80x25 White" exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/xterm -T 'W80x25' -n 'W80x25' -ls -geometry 80x25+1+363 -fg 'black' -bg 'white' "Xterm 80x25 Yellow" exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/xterm -T 'Y80x25' -n 'Y80x25' -ls -geometry 80x25+1+363 -fg 'black' -bg 'yellow' "Xterm 80x40 Brown" exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/xterm -T '80x40' -n '80x40' -ls -geometry 80x40+524-86 -fg 'white' -bg 'saddlebrown' "Xterm 80x40 White" exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/xterm -T 'W80x40' -n 'W80x40' -ls -geometry 80x40+524-86 -fg 'black' -bg 'white' "Xterm 80x40 Maroon" exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/xterm -T 'W80x40' -n 'W80x40' -ls -geometry 80x40+524-86 -fg 'ivory' -bg 'maroon' "Xterm 80x40 Orchid" exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/xterm -T 'W80x40' -n 'W80x40' -ls -geometry 80x40+524-86 -fg 'yellow' -bg 'darkorchid' "Xterm 80x40 Steel Blue" exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/xterm -T 'W80x40' -n 'W80x40' -ls -geometry 80x40+524-86 -fg 'floralwhite' -bg 'SteelBlue' "Xterm 80x40 Dark Green" exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/xterm -T 'W80x40' -n 'W80x40' -ls -geometry 80x40+524-86 -fg 'LavenderBlush1' -bg 'green4' SEPARATOR "Clock..." exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/clock "Calculator..." exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/calctool "Performance Meter..." exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/perfmeter "Print Tool..." exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/printtool "Audio Tool..." exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/audiotool "Tape Tool..." exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/tapetool SEPARATOR "Image Tool..." exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/imagetool "Snapshot..." exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/snapshot "Icon Editor..." exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/iconedit "Binder..." exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/binder "AnswerBook..." exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/answerbook SEPARATOR "BugTool" bugtool "Bugfinder" bugfinder "TopCat" acm ---- end of .openwin-menu-programs --- cut here -----------This should get you started with your home gui environment using openwindows.
If you are going to be running wabi on the intel boxes at least have 8meg more than you would use in a normal system. So if you have 16 this means you really want 24meg of memory if you are going to be running 1 wabi session. Of coarse don't fall into the trap of filling your motherboard with a combination of 4 and 1 meg simms than realizing later you throw away the one meg simms to upgrade to 32 meg. I went through that pain and it wasn't worth it. Lately I have seen ram brokers who by your old 1 meg simms so this maybe an option. But after going through it, in my opinion it would have been worth it just to bite the bullet and get the 32meg.
mount -f pcfs /dev/dsk/c0t0d0p0:c /mnt
Where c0 is the controller number.
t0 is the target (scsi id number)
d0 is always 0
p0 is the partition, dos is the first partition
/mnt is the mount point
You can use the normal unix commands to copy files 'cp' etc after that to move the data.
Actually while we are on the subject you can mount the floppy in a similar way.
mount -f pcfs /dev/diskette /mnt
Don't forget to turn of the volume management before you try to do this from the command line or you will get a "device busy" message. "/etc/init.d/volmgt stop" will stop the volume manager. Than mount the floppy, cp the files than restart the volume manager, "/etc/init.d/volmgt start". Somebody should shot the volume manager it really gets in the way for command line usage.
None that I know of currently. Soltice from Sun is making some inroads into this area.
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Their is a setting for 38400 in the admintool to set up the serial port. No 57800 :-( which would be nice to run PPP on a 28.8 modem. Note, it is important to get hardware flow control functional and have patch 102324-01 applied. Update #6 contains this patch and it will automaticlly be applied so it is advisable to install with the Solaris Update #6 disks.
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You can't. MorningStar is the only vendor that I know of that supports dynamic PPP. And maybe dp.3.0.1 which I haven't heard of any conformation that it's been ported to Solairs x86.
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Note that Solaris uses a tmpfs. Which means swap and tmp share a common disk space. When configuring a swap space it is not uncommon for me to configure 80 to 100meg of swap space on a single user system. You want this because many programs use the tmpfs for speeding up applications.
Look at some rough estimates we have:
/ = 56meg /usr = 212 meg swap = 80 meg /export/home = the remaining diskNow I did not take in account the /var partition. Usally in a single user development system I let the system install the couple of packages in var than move them with a 'cp -r' over to another file system. Than I remove the var directory and make a symbolic link over to the new var directory.
This all seems to fit well in a 540meg drive and leaves room for growth. Don't think your going to grow think twice, I've done at least 300 installs by now and shot myself in the foot a few times. The /export/home I typically use for CDE installs which sets up the symbolic links during the install.
A word of performance advise. If you are going to be using a fast wide controller such as the Adaptec 2940 put a wide scsi drive for the system drive. These drive usally have double the throughput of the normal 8bit drives according to the iozone benchmark results and they make the tmpfs fly. Don't forget to set the maxpgio in the /etc/system file for 5400 and 7200rpm drives accordingly. I discribe this setting in the performance section of this faq.
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AMI, IOZONE XSTONES
A typical iozone test with 10 to 20 meg sequential file will give about 2M/sec read/write on a 50Mhz ESIA system on a Maxtor 540SL (8.5ms) drive with an Adaptec 2740 controller. You will get a little better performance from a 90Mhz Pentium system. A fully thrashed system will see writes down to about 1M/sec. I noticed that the NCR 810/825 etc seem a little more peaky in the performance specially on the PCI bus. Note: If you are going to be using high speed spindle drivers for your boot driver like 5400 and 7200 rpm drives you may want to 'set maxpgio=60' for the 5400rpm drive in your /etc/system file, 'set maxpgio=80' for the 7200rpm drives. This causes the schedpaging to be more efficient.
ISA SCSI controllers are a very poor choice but you may want to increase lotsfree in your /etc/system file if you have lots of memory like 32meg.
Xstones is a little more of a subjective measurement of graphics proformance. The comp.unix.x.i386 newsgroup keeps up on the latest xstone preformance on graphics cards for PC's. The definitive web site for TOC or Sysadmin TOC
Some questions will arise when trying to configure your video card and monitor size. The most critical area is when you do the install after you ask what vertical HZ, screen size 14,15,17,21 inch etc. If you get it worng you get the squiggles.
First find your video card manual, hah I can here the laughs from accross the nation.. What manual? If this is the case just select the slowest vertical HZ. You can aways change it later after the system is up.
Resolution be safe just try it at 1024x768 first time through the install.
Screen size should be easy [ ] about that big.
If you don't know the video card type just select the standard vga8 to do the install. Hopefully when your system boots it displays what video card you have in it.
A good video card combination such as the ATI and Sony 17sei can allow you to drive it at 76Hz vertical 1280x1024 on a 17 inch screen.
Hint: Look in the update readme files and at the end in one of the appendicies you will find a chart of monitors and there scan rates. Usally good to refer to before you buy the monitor and video card combination. You could have a very nice high bandwidth monitor and a lousy video card that can't drive it hard enough. Or visa versa, a good video card that can drive a high bandwidth but the monitor just can't handle it.
Anohter Hint: Even though there is no 14inch monitor on the configuration menu you can select the 15inch setting. If the 14inch monitor has a good bandwidth it will sync up.
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This is a dupe question
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Tape ID 4 CDROM ID 6
Typically I turn the vold off. I find it get's in the way of tar, cpio and dd. It's ok for users who like to user the file manager to mount the floppy. Note: vold will get in the way of Wabi's use of the floppy. You can comment the entry out in /etc/vold.conf for the floppy. Me I just comment it out of the /etc/init.d/volmgt script and don't even start the daemon. The reason is that when you use tar or cpio from the unix command line the vold is going to complain the device is busy. Than of coarse someone will come along and want to use the filemgr to look at the floppy and you need the vold turned on. Just can't win.
A for your information: When the vold communicates with the kernel there is no way to know if a disk is inserted into the drive, or a new disk was inserted.
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/dev/diskette and /dev/diskette0
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mount -f pcfs /dev/diskette /mnt
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One of the most common problems with some mother boards is handling dma during the install. Usally if you get a hang right around Configuring /dev/devices. Try turning off the caching external and internal. Slow the system speed down if it allows you to do this in the bios or through the front panel switch. ONLY for the install. Kick it back up after the install.
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Problems with bus mices. I beleive there is a patch coming for this.
Get a logitech designer mouse, boy are they nice.
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Get the enet number from the manufacture supplied disk. Sometimes the boards have a sticker with the number on it. You need this number only to configure the boot install server if you are installing from a network.
Also if your already running do a 'dmesg | more' and you will see it in the boot messages.
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To boot solars (unix) (miniroot) however you would like to term it. Boot from the CDROM. After you the video configuration, network, time and date you will notice one of the menu's have a button [Exit]
Select exit and of coarse it will ask you again do you want to exit you just say yes. Your now down in unix. You can mount the boot drive /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s2 /mnt and view anything wrong with the boot drive. If I remember correct /mnt is a rd only device you may want to make a /tmp/mnt and mount it there, thus you can change things like the password if the root password is lost etc.
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Tossed it's cookiee's? I still have to figure out if this bug was fixed. I got to take this out of here.
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As in the case with IDE and SCSI the drives are already low level formatted. If you wish to format a SCSI you can use the 'format' utility that comes with solaris. An second drive install would be to use 'format'
select the disk fdisk (select the whole disk or partial for format) format write the label with the "label" option partition, check the partition arrangement quit the format program newfs the drive with 'newfs' i.e. 'newfs /dev/rdsk/c0t1d0s2' would create a files sysetm on the the whole drive with the scsi id 1. mount the partition on your favor mount point adjust your /etc/vfstab
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Of the two cards supported the Sound Blaster Pro and the AWE32....
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Blurb about /dev/kernel/xxx
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Portable release notes.
I am trying to set up my home machine through a local provider, best.com, in Mt View. When I got the account, he handed me a page of IP numbers: Gateway IP DNS nameserver IP NNTP IP Shell IP ftp IP www/http IP smtp/pop Mail Server IP On my home system, I use the following approach, and it works well, except that DNS responses from my provider are painfully slow. Cautions and examples are given at the end of this email. If you find better ways I can do some of this, please let me know. Good luck, dennis 1. Insert all IP addresses into hosts table, to be able to use names. Your provider needs to give you the names. You can determine them using nslookup at work, but that is a nuisance. 2. Create /etc/resolv.conf, and add your domainname and nameserver lines. Your provider can provide the domainname (probably best.com, unless they have a multi-location operation). The DNS nameserver goes on the nameserver line. 3. Edit /etc/mail/sendmail.cf to use relay mailer ether, and relay host should be the smtp server. This hostname needs to be accurate. 4. Most news readers (like xvnews and Mosaic/Netscape) refer to the environment variable NNTPSERVER to find the NNTP server. Set that in your environment before invoking the reader. This can go in your .profile, .cshrc, or whatever, depending on what shell you use. 5. Different www clients use different mechanisms for locating/identifying their home page, but as an example, netscape allows you to put the URL into the preference sheet under Styles. 6. If you want to use a shell acount on their machine, you would do something along the lines of telnet. 7. For ftp to their server, again do ftp . 8. The gateway hostname can go into the /etc/gateways file. Check the man page (in.routed man page) for syntax. 9. For the actual PPP connection, the only thing that counts is the machine you dial up to (most likely the gateway machine). You will have to edit the /etc/uucp/{Systems,Dialers,Devices} with things like your preferred modem setup unless you like one of the defaults (one of my character flaws, I guess, I don't like any of them), dialing info for the gateway machine (note that our PPP is broken, and ignores the time-to-call field, disaster for a lot of us), and what serial port you have your modem connected to. Then edit the /etc/asppp.cf file to configure the ipdptp0 interface. Notes for the examples: I have my modem configured to power-on in the mode I like to use for my PPP configuration. DISABLE LOGINS ON THE MODEM PORT. I don't recall the nameserver IP address of my DNS server, so the example has a bogus address for resolv.conf. After I login to my provider, there is a delay (SCO on Intel at the provider) and I get a menu with a choice prompt. To start PPP, I choose choice # 3. I also found that I had to put a delay at the end of the chat script in /etc/uucp/Systems, or I couldn't get connected. Loopback problems and config error problems, caused by the remote system still being in echo mode on the line when my machine started sending the first PPP configure packets. Also, I have yet to find a 2.3 or 2.4 setup where ttymon grabs the line after PPP times out and disconnects (but before the modem has recognized a DTR-down condition (my speculation is that our streams stuff doesn't actually take DTR down)) causing the line to essentially be hung. This is avoided by not enabling ttymon on that port. In other words, in keeping with Sun's long tradition, truly bidirectional lines are a crapshoot on Suns. Yes, I have an escalated service order open on it, so do our customers, and I am not holding my breath. Examples for my home machine: /etc/hosts: 165.154.15.142 daddy 165.154.1.1 noc mail 165.154.1.8 nnrp 127.0.0.1 localhost /etc/resolv.conf: domainname tor.hookup.net nameserver 165.154.1.7 /etc/mail/sendmail.cf: - stuff not included here for brevity - Dmether - stuff not included here for brevity - DRmail.tor.hookup.net CRmail.tor.hookup.net - stuff not included here for brevity - ~/.cshrc: - stuff not included here for brevity - setenv NNTPSERVER nnrp.tor.hookup.net - stuff not included here for brevity - /etc/gateways: net default gateway noc metric 1 passive /etc/uucp/Dialers (I have the power-on settings of my modem set up for 14.4K): wb144 =W-, "" \dAT\r\c OK\r \EATDT\T\r\c CONNECT /etc/uucp/Devices: ACUWB cua/0 - Any wb144 /etc/uucp/Systems: noc Any ACUWB 38400 somenumbertodial in:-\r-in: myloginnamegoeshere rd: mypasswordgoeshere "" \d\d\c choice: 3 "" \d\d\d\c /etc/asppp.cf: ifconfig ipdptp0 plumb daddy noc netmask 0xffffff00 -trailers up path inactivity_timeout 60 interface ipdptp0 peer_system_name noc debug_level 9 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Also refer to the PPP Admin Guide for further help in setting up PPP on Solaris x86.
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From CDROM the installation takes about 2 1/2 hours. Faster CDROMs, such as the Toshiba take around 1 1/2 hours.
A little update on this. On a 50mhz 486 with a double speed SCSI CDROM such as the Toshiba 3401 from the time that an "Intial Install" starts it only takes about 28 minutes. Upgrades take about 2 to 3 hours. This is because the system must deturmine what critical configuration data must be save and replace it on "A package basis".
I'm the impatient type and given up totally on system upgrades. Now I have a separate disk drive which I just do intial installs because it goes so much faster. With the typical 540 SCSI drives costing in the 200.00 ranage it just isn't worth it anymore to do upgrades. But this is my opinion so take it for what it is worth.
Below is typically what I save before doing an initial upgrade. Don't take this for the ultimate system definition of what you should save but it works for my system. Your system may be designed very differnetly. The first thing I do is mount the filesystem that has a home directory with the below critical files and copy them to the appropreaite directories. I'm sure it could be automated but... What the advantage of this process is I can do an initial install in about an hour. My home directories are always on another disk partition.
Install_Notes My own release notes
crontab This is my crontab, just do a "crontab -e" and save the
file
defaultrouter If you have one for routing to a DNS server.
df Just to keep an idea of my disk usage
dfstab /etc/dfs/dfstab for shared file systems
inetinit I modify my inetinit, not a standard practice in the
industry.
kshrc_bob A typical kshrc user
kshrc_root A root kshrc
mail Make a copy of the current mail directory
passwd /etc/passwd file
profile.bob A typical ksh .profile. Note home directories are
mounted on a seprate drive so this type of file
dosn't get destroyed during an intial install.
profile_root A profile for root.
sendmail.cf The system sendmail.cf that works for your system.
That is if you didn't modify it.
shadow /etc/shadow file
vfstab /etc/vfstab
volmgt /etc/init.d/volmgt Stupid volmgt which I always disable
because I can't stand it getting in the way. Normally
you don't modify this one.
Typical problems with SCSI drives are there is no termination resistor. Or worse is double termination resistors. Some people mistakenly leave a resistor pack on a drive and the system will become flakey if this happens. It can run for hours with no problems than boom, you get a panic.
Other more obscure problems is setting the BIOS address space for the disk controller the same as the network card address space. PCI video card address conflicting with PCI SCSI disk controller BIOS address space overlap comes to mind.
If the /etc/openwin/server/etc/OWconfig file become corrupt or was misconfigured with 'devconfig' or 'kdmconfig' that just move it to say OWconfig.old and use 'deconfig' or 'kdmconfig' to create a new one. The most common problem is during the configuration of video card and mouse you select the wrong type and "openwin" or "cde's dtlogin" will not longer initailize. This is an ascii file so please review it to see it's contains once you get a working one.
EISA busmastering cards are about the best. Note that there are two SMC ESIA cards. One is a twin port which is bus mastering and the other is a busmastering which there are no drivers at the writing of this faq. The Intel EISA ethernet card is a good busmastering card on the EISA bus to go with. Second choice would be the 3Com 3c579.
Read the merits of running Solaris x86. But the worst sin is running Unix on an ISA bus with disk controllers such as the Adaptec 1542 series. I know their cheap but if you have more that 16meg of memory in your system you should not be running an ISA disk controller.
Typically your going to see better performance from the ESIA bus. PCI is the biggest winner.
Yes.
Refer to the Hardware Compatiblity Guide. It has a section which discribes witch multi-cpu motherboads have been tested.