No Framebuffer?

[trmentry]

I have an interesting problem with 2 Ultra 5s that I have.

One Ultra5 has 256m ram and I can't remember the CPU speed (box1) but it is slower than the other I have with 512 ram and 333mhz (box2).

Box1 will boot the Ubuntu 7.10 sparc cd with no issues and I can get to the install... however it will get to 88% on copy the files and locks up. No errors given.

Box2 will boot the cd, and when I press enter for "Boot Install" my monitor goes wacked with "out of sync, range" etc. But I know it can display what the cd is doing as Box1 doesn't have this issue. So figure there is somethign wacked with Box2, but it ran OpenBSD fine for a long time, but no framebuffer on it.

So I'm stuck. I'd like to see if I can get Box2 running as it has better cpu and more memory. But I can't see the screen for what its doing.

Is there a way to boot the cd without using framebuffer?

Thanks

[netztier]

Is there a way to boot the cd without using framebuffer?

Thanks

Not all U5s are the same, as far as I know - there were versions with different amount of video memory, different graphics chipset revisions, etc.

Check and try the atyfb=..... kernel parameter:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=536188&highlight=atyfb

best regards

Marc

[trmentry]

thanks netztier.

and yes, I'm still trying to get these 2 Ultra5s up with Ubuntu from last year. ](*,)

I'll give this a try when I got home (oh the fun in working graveyard shifts). I completely forgot about that parm to pass to kernel at boot.

I'm guessing at the
Press Enter - Boot Install prompt that I would just enter the
video=atyfb:1024x768@60 and then hit enter right?
or is it more 'install video=atyfb:1024x768@60"

thanks

[trmentry]

Ok.. bit more of a problem. <sigh>

I was able to
ok> boot cdrom
then at the prompt

install video=atyfb:1024x768@60

I then was able to get Ubuntu installed.

However now when the machine boots, it does a boot disk that I expect and drops me to a

boot:

I hit return and get the same framebuffer issue that I had before. All out of wack for my monitor.

I tried the 'setenv output-device screen:......' command and reseting but that didn't help.

If I knew what the boot: was looking for to boot Ubuntu I would pass the atyfb on to it... but I have no idea.

So can someone please help and let me know what Silo is loading with just a <cr> at the boot: so that I can enter it and the parm I need to get the framebuffer working right.

Thanks.

[netztier]

So can someone please help and let me know what Silo is loading with just a <cr> at the boot: so that I can enter it and the parm I need to get the framebuffer working right.


Check /etc/silo.conf

marc@grill:/etc$ more silo.conf
# root=/dev/sda2
root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/c5ea121a-6843-4a0d-917b-1d248fddb33b
partition=1
default=Linux
read-only
timeout=100
append="quiet splash"

image=/vmlinuz
label=Linux
initrd=/initrd.img

image=/vmlinuz.old
label=LinuxOLD
initrd=/initrd.img.old


See the "label" lines - here's what you type at the boot prompt.

So at first boot, what you type at the boot prompt is "Linux atyfb=...."

Once you have successfully booted the machine, edit /etc/silo.conf. For "global" kernel options, add "atyfb=..." to the "append" line. If you wanted to define individual kernel options for the different images, add an append="..." line to each image=... section.

That should be it. According to it's manpage, unlike LILO or grub, SILO does not need some update-script to be run after changing /etc/silo.conf, so edit and save the file and reboot the machine.

best regards

Marc

[trmentry]

That did the trick. Thank you very much for the help.