[K12OSN] LTSP on Sparc

["Terrell Prudé, Jr."]

Zouhir Hafidi wrote:

> norbert a écrit :
>
>> Salut / Hi
>>
>> Les stations Sparc utilise RARP pour se lancer, du moins c'est ceque 
>> les miens exige.....
>
>
> :-)
>
>>
>> The Sparc stations require RARP to launch.. anyway thats what mine 
>> require.
>
>
> just update OpenBoot ...
>
> ZH



Yesterday, I demo'd this very setup for Thomas Jefferson HS out here in 
Fairfax, VA, and in preparing for said demo, I learned a few things.

Mr. Hafidi is right; you've got to update OpenBoot to v3.31.  It was in 
v3.31 that DHCP booting became supported in addition to the old RARP 
method.  Yes, at last, I finally had time to try this.  It works, and 
pretty well, given that Ultra 5's have built-in 100BaseTX/FullDuplex 
NICs built into them.  :-)  This is good, because I have several Ultra 
5's waiting to be used as thin clients.  However, I needed to modify two 
lines in the file /opt/ltsp/sparc/etc/lts.conf in order for the mouse to 
be recognized.

   X_MOUSE_PROTOCOL   = "PS/2"
   X_MOUSE_DEVICE     = "/dev/psaux"

My changes for my Ultra 5's were the following.

   X_MOUSE_PROTOCOL   = "busmouse"
   X_MOUSE_DEVICE     = "/dev/sunmouse"

I learned that, to update OpenBoot, you've got to have Slowaris 
installed on the SPARC's hard disk.  My guess is that it's because the 
Solaris boot loader likes the firmware updater program better than SILO 
does.  With GNU/Linux and SILO installed, when you run the OB updater, 
you get a "FATAL ERROR" message saying that the ELF binary has more than 
one entry point, so sorry, better luck next time.  Looking for a way to 
do this with a Free Software OS instead of Slowaris, I then installed 
OpenBSD and tried updating the firmware, but sadly, a similar error pops 
up with OpenBSD's boot loader.  Oh well, it takes about 40 minutes to 
install Solaris 8 on these boxes.  I did so with one hard disk and used 
that hard disk for all of my other Ultra 5's.  This saved several hours.

Once all this is done, this "old" UltraSPARC came right up with the 
K12LTSP login screen.  The UltraSPARC's hard disk can now be removed.

The only thing bad that happens is that TuxType crashes with an X11 
opcode error, though TuxMath doesn't.  I believe that this is because 
the X11 version here is an early release candidate of XFree86 4.4.0 and 
not the final version.  I imagine that a later version of XFree86 or 
X.org would work fine; I just haven't had time to compile it and try it 
yet.  Interestingly enough, I had previously had Red Hat Linux 6.2 for 
the UltraSPARC installed on it and simply popped "X -query 172.16.3.254 
&" at the end of /etc/rc.d/rc.local.  Why such an ancient version of 
RHL?  It works, that's why.  :-)  The nice part for software testing 
purposes is that RHL 6.2 has XFree86 3.3.6, which, as it happened, 
allowed me to see if I could repro this issue with an older X11 
version.  TuxType was happy as a clam with 3.3.6.  TuxMath didn't seem 
to mind either way, though.  Ah well, hardly a show-stopper.

The end result:  I now have a single K12LTSP server that can netboot 
x86, PMac 52x0, and SPARC boxes as thin clients...simultaneously.  How?  
I have four NICs in this box--three inside, one outside, like so.

eth0 = inside, 172.16.0.254/24, Gig-E fiber (x86 terminals)
eth1 = outside, DHCP, 100BaseTX copper (to the main bldg. LAN)
eth2 = inside, 172.16.2.254/24, 100BaseTX copper (PMac terminals)
eth3 = inside, 172.16.3.254/24, Gig-E copper (SPARC terminals)

Each of these subnets and NICs is sitting in its own VLAN, and all the 
thin client subnets are being served by dhcpd on the K12LTSP server.  
Life is good.

--TP
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