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#1 2008-09-23 21:39:45

erm67
Member
From: Europe
Registered: 2007-08-01
Posts: 123

Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

I have flat rate adsl2 24/7 and a sparc ultra 2 idle connected, I can trust some people on it to port all arch PKGBUILD,
18Gb hard disk scsi3 15000 rpm 1280Mb rom 2 300Mhz CPUs.
I can make Arch base boot on it in a couple of weeks. Anybody with me?

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#2 2008-09-23 23:10:01

sand_man
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From: Australia
Registered: 2008-06-10
Posts: 2,164

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

What are you asking for exactly?


neutral

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#3 2008-09-24 17:19:36

Daenyth
Forum Fellow
From: Boston, MA
Registered: 2008-02-24
Posts: 1,244

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

I can't really help, but, awesome work! Good luck.

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#4 2008-09-24 18:05:46

kensai
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From: Puerto Rico
Registered: 2005-06-03
Posts: 2,484
Website

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

Hmmm, that would mean I can take the dust off the ultra SPARC 5 I have... Interesting. But have no time currently.

Last edited by kensai (2008-09-24 18:06:56)


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#5 2008-09-25 10:13:52

erm67
Member
From: Europe
Registered: 2007-08-01
Posts: 123

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

Well this weekend I will probably try to boot something, and than let you know I am also busy for 2 weeks.

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#6 2008-09-25 10:19:00

erm67
Member
From: Europe
Registered: 2007-08-01
Posts: 123

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

Misfit138 wrote:
sand_man wrote:

What are you asking for exactly?

If anyone's interested in porting Arch to the SPARC ultra 2 architecture....

Well basically the idea is to install it manually the first time, the kernel package is probably the most dificult thing. 90% of the PKGBUILD will probably work out of the box, some will need some patching. The CPU is slow so recompile everything all alone will probably take forever, gcc took almost 6 hours to compile, openoffice maybe days.

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#7 2008-09-25 10:44:28

cwjiof
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From: Taichung, TW
Registered: 2008-01-27
Posts: 131

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

Great contribution which will let Arch spread more widely. Thank you.

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#8 2008-09-25 16:16:53

pogeymanz
Member
Registered: 2008-03-11
Posts: 1,020

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

Just want to say that I approve of this venture.

However, I currently am very busy with school and have limited knowledge on the matter anyway, so I can't physically help.

I'll be there in spirit.

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#9 2008-09-25 16:19:15

quad3d@work
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From: Austin, TX
Registered: 2006-12-29
Posts: 81
Website

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

I have like 15+ Sun Blade 100 laying around... smile

Couple V240s.

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#10 2008-09-26 13:20:52

kensai
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From: Puerto Rico
Registered: 2005-06-03
Posts: 2,484
Website

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

quad3d@work wrote:

I have like 15+ Sun Blade 100 laying around... smile

Couple V240s.

send me one sun blade, I'll pay the shipping. big_smile

Last edited by kensai (2008-09-26 13:21:21)


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#11 2008-09-26 15:25:01

catwell
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From: Bretagne, France
Registered: 2008-02-20
Posts: 207
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Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

I'm the president of an association that has many useless Ultra Sparc 5 machines stored in a cupboard. We use only one of them as an IRC server (it runs Debian)...

I don't know how many of them still work but I guess I could dedicate one or two to this project. I'm not just sure Ultra Sparc 5 and Ultra2 are the same thing, could anyone confirm that?

Last edited by catwell (2008-09-26 15:25:19)

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#12 2008-09-26 20:35:10

erm67
Member
From: Europe
Registered: 2007-08-01
Posts: 123

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

catwell wrote:

I'm the president of an association that has many useless Ultra Sparc 5 machines stored in a cupboard. We use only one of them as an IRC server (it runs Debian)...

I don't know how many of them still work but I guess I could dedicate one or two to this project. I'm not just sure Ultra Sparc 5 and Ultra2 are the same thing, could anyone confirm that?

same processor different buses, not much different, it is better supported by linux however.

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#13 2008-09-26 20:53:31

LTSmash
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From: Aguascalientes - Mexico
Registered: 2008-01-02
Posts: 348
Website

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

erm67 wrote:
Misfit138 wrote:
sand_man wrote:

What are you asking for exactly?

If anyone's interested in porting Arch to the SPARC ultra 2 architecture....

Well basically the idea is to install it manually the first time, the kernel package is probably the most dificult thing. 90% of the PKGBUILD will probably work out of the box, some will need some patching. The CPU is slow so recompile everything all alone will probably take forever, gcc took almost 6 hours to compile, openoffice maybe days.

Why don't you just use DistCC?? Perhaps If you have many computers on your network compiling would be a lot faster big_smile


Proud Ex-Arch user.
Still an ArchLinux lover though.

Currently on Kubuntu 9.10

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#14 2008-09-27 11:15:36

erm67
Member
From: Europe
Registered: 2007-08-01
Posts: 123

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

LTSmash wrote:
erm67 wrote:
Misfit138 wrote:

If anyone's interested in porting Arch to the SPARC ultra 2 architecture....

Well basically the idea is to install it manually the first time, the kernel package is probably the most dificult thing. 90% of the PKGBUILD will probably work out of the box, some will need some patching. The CPU is slow so recompile everything all alone will probably take forever, gcc took almost 6 hours to compile, openoffice maybe days.

Why don't you just use DistCC?? Perhaps If you have many computers on your network compiling would be a lot faster big_smile

cross compiling ....... I should set up a cross compiling environment on all computer
Anyway I start today doing something, Sun dismissed the Sparc Architecture on July 2008 IIRC so that would mean port Arch (bleeding edge distro) to an old dismissed architecture.
Most sparc distro compiles for the old sparc 32 bit processor while the newer machines has a UltraSparc 64 bit processor, compiling everything optimized for the v8+ (64 bit instructions + 32 bits addresses) architecture should give considerable speed boost over Debian-Ubuntu.
At the beginning I will probably use the Ubuntu 7.04 kernel, just to see if it is worth the effort. It works well, faster than solaris anyway. Even Ubuntu dismissed the sparc architecture in the newest releases.

Last edited by erm67 (2008-09-27 11:36:54)

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#15 2008-10-15 17:44:51

Hunner
Member
Registered: 2008-01-03
Posts: 12

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

What exactly do you mean by "Sun dismissed the Sparc Architecture"? They still sell sparc boxes and have a very active project at http://www.opensparc.net/

This would be cool to bring to fruition. big_smile

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#16 2009-03-19 16:26:19

chris_debian
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From: Wiltshire, UK
Registered: 2009-02-24
Posts: 284

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

I have an SS20 (32-bit), that I'd love to put Arch on.

Having used Gentoo, I'd be more than happy to wait for the compile time.

Chris.

Last edited by chris_debian (2009-03-19 16:26:45)


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#17 2009-05-21 09:30:07

chris_debian
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From: Wiltshire, UK
Registered: 2009-02-24
Posts: 284

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

I also have an Ultra 2 that i'd love to install Arch on.

Cheers,

Chris.


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www.whylinuxisbetter.net/

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#18 2009-06-21 15:02:24

chris_debian
Member
From: Wiltshire, UK
Registered: 2009-02-24
Posts: 284

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

Did the Sparc port ever get any further?


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#19 2009-06-26 11:36:26

chris_debian
Member
From: Wiltshire, UK
Registered: 2009-02-24
Posts: 284

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

catwell wrote:

I'm the president of an association that has many useless Ultra Sparc 5 machines stored in a cupboard. We use only one of them as an IRC server (it runs Debian)...

I don't know how many of them still work but I guess I could dedicate one or two to this project. I'm not just sure Ultra Sparc 5 and Ultra2 are the same thing, could anyone confirm that?

A good description of Sun machines can be found here:

http://www.unixnerd.demon.co.uk/unix.html

"Ultra 2 Series
Ultra 2's are similar in size to U1s, just a bit taller. These are dual CPU capable and have 16 ram slots (vs 8 on the U1, same type of ram) so can be a lot more powerful. They use SBUS cards just like the U1 and have similar expansion options. We find these are very popular machines but don't see many of them.
These take the same cpu modules as the single cpu Ultra 30s.

Ultra 5/10 Series
These are more modren machines. They use PCI cards which makes finding high power video cards or network cards easier. They have built in networking and all the usual ports. The U5 has a desktop case and the U10 is mini tower. These take IDE discs, if you want SCSI you need to add a PCI SCSI card, but be careful - many cards such as Adaptec are not supported by Solaris.
Unlike older Suns U5/10s do NOT automatically sense the voltage! There is a switch next to the power inlet at the back, always check it's set correctly or you'll need a new power supply (ask me how I found that out).
These machines have the CPU on a plug in board so you can upgrade them. But be careful you don't bend any pins as they're very fragile!
Unlike all our other Suns these will work with any VGA monitor. They have vga ports, not 13w3 and don't need unusual sync support."

Hope this helps.

I'd love to see Arch on Sun machines.

Chris.


Reasons why you may want to try GNU/Linux:

www.whylinuxisbetter.net/

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#20 2009-08-30 02:09:34

Angel_LB
Member
From: /Canada/Quebec
Registered: 2007-02-03
Posts: 15

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

*bump*

I should be the proud owner of a couple of Sunfire V100 soon, and would like to take part of this thing.

Any activity yet?

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#21 2009-09-10 06:14:53

dminor125
Member
Registered: 2008-10-24
Posts: 6

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

Interest in a sparc64 port hasn't waned for me.  This would be great to work on time permitting.  I'm primarily a sysop and end user but I'll toss out
my thoughts.

Compiling on my ultra 60 is painfully slow.  I've run all the BSDs on it; building a NetBSD release takes 8+ hours provided the build doesn't fail.
Instead, I cross build on a fast x86 machine: NetBSD has targets "build.sh -m sparc64 release" and "build.sh -m sparc64 iso-image" that cross builds
the entire base system and then creates a bootable iso that can be used to install/upgrade the box.  Something similar would be the fastest way
to bring up a sparc64 toolchain and Arch core but I am not an expert on cross-building environments, and certainly not with Arch.

If cross building isn't possible, I think (correct me if I'm wrong) we'd need a build host installed on a sparc64 machine.  Perhaps boot up and install
something like Gentoo on it.  Then use that to build the toolchain and compile Arch core.  I say core b/c that would be a good starting point: sort of
a proof of concept.  Granted this would take a while but would probably be easier since it's a native environment.

I'll stop here.  If there is an interest in any of this, please do share your comments.

Pat

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#22 2009-11-01 04:33:37

Angel_LB
Member
From: /Canada/Quebec
Registered: 2007-02-03
Posts: 15

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

My starting idea would be to cross-compile a toolchain using LFS' guidance (See: http://cross-lfs.org/files/BOOK/1.1.0/C … -x86.html)
and maybe boot using something like gentoo (ultrasparc-aware) and use a chroot to start building the whole thing on the machine itself.

There is also the alternative of adding the pacman/ABS structure within the tool chain (either at cross-compile time or at boot time) and rebuild the whole package list.

Lastly, cross-compiling the whole thing before even trying to boot anything.  Maybe someone could lay a hand making a boot ISO with the sparc packages and we'd never even have to boot with anything else smile

But to get a server/repo going, even installing to a target HD within the cross-compiling box and then plugging the HD in the Sun box would do the trick...

Unless one is truely wrong (has a flashing amber light), I finally got 3 of those boxes (Sunfire v100), but no HD and lastly figured I needed a console cable (ethernet-to-serial) to do anything with them as there is no video card (and no slot to put any, before anyone suggest so) smile

I'm still thinking of doing it, among other plans, but I need some hardware to settle first.

We could come up with a plan first smile  I still can start the tool chain building and stuff, given we iron out something nice to work on.

Last edited by Angel_LB (2009-11-01 04:36:00)

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#23 2009-11-01 22:30:10

cb88
Member
Registered: 2008-06-10
Posts: 10

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

I have an ss10 I can test/compile(once the port is ready) on

I would also point out that debian was compiling 32bit userland for all sparcs with some exceptions that saw speedups like the kernel so supporting older 32bit sparcs should be an added bonus

I have been trying to get T2 SDE (it just spits out binary packages you can build a custom distro with... supposedly supports sparc32) to build a bootstrap environment but the cross compiler build is broken and I can't figure out how to get on the mailing list to ask for help I may email the main dev directly. T2 should also be able to create bootable install images to get us started once the bugs are cleaned up. Gentoo has dropped sparc32 support which I don't really understand except that the machines were slow they are still pretty neat and would make decent personal servers etc.

I think it would be nice to get a single boot image ready and have 64bit additional repos for those that can run them.

Anybody could fix the T2 GCC compiler that would be GREAT Glibc and quite a few other packages needed for the cross compiler work however it fails here
== 16:27:56 =[0]=> Building base/gcc [4.3.4 8.0-trunk].
/home/tv/t2/t2-trunk/build/sparc-8.0-trunk-generic-sparc-v8-cross-linux/TOOLCHAIN/tools.cross/lib/parse-config: line 8: package/./base/gcc/parse-config: No such file or directory
-> Reading package config: package/base/gcc/gcc.conf
-> Preparing build in src.gcc.sparc.20091101.162755.20021.Vectortheta
-> Building. Writing output to $root/var/adm/logs/0-gcc.out
*> Corrected ./libtool.m4
*> Corrected ./libjava/libltdl/ltmain.sh
*> Corrected ./libjava/classpath/ltmain.sh
!> checking whether sigaltstack is declared... yes
!> checking for struct tms... yes
!> checking for clock_t... yes
!> checking for .preinit_array/.init_array/.fini_array support... yes
!> checking if mkdir takes one argument... no
!> *** Configuration sparcv8-t2-linux-gnu not supported
!> Due to previous errors, no 0-gcc.log file!
!> (Try enabling xtrace in the config to track an error inside the build system.)
-> $root/var/adm/logs/0-gcc.out -> 0-gcc.err

Last edited by cb88 (2009-11-01 22:37:26)

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#24 2009-11-01 23:21:37

Vamp898
Member
From: 東京
Registered: 2009-01-03
Posts: 891
Website

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

Isn´t it able to test/compile the stuff with QEMU (for those who dont have a real SPARC)

There could be installed a Linux Distro like this

http://de-mirror.org/distro/gentoo/rele … nt-stage3/

And than just use it to build a Arch system into a chroot or something

Last edited by Vamp898 (2009-11-01 23:24:31)

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#25 2009-11-02 00:23:49

cb88
Member
Registered: 2008-06-10
Posts: 10

Re: Arch linux for Sparc Ultra2

@Vammp898 are you talking about mkpkg or T2?

T2 uses crosscompilers which are much faster than attempting to emulate a sparc which qemu doesn't do all that well it seems I haven't been able to boot anything on it openbsd almost boots on qemu

I should also point out Arora Linux the have a good FAQ even though it would still be a quite out of date distro to start from ....crosscompiling is probably the best option

Last edited by cb88 (2009-11-02 00:25:13)

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