Hello Everyone,

First of all let me thank you for your help and patience. I am a quite
new to this kind of thing so if I am not providing enough information
or no following the proper ettiquette please let me know.

I am trying to connected to a Sun SunFire V100 machine from an old
NCD19r terminal. I currently connecting the terminal directly to the
SunFire by connecting a twisted pair cable to the SunFire's serial
port.

What I want to do (and can't really figure out) is use the terminal to
boot the SunFire from a CD so I can install a Gentoo's SPARC Linux
distrobution. Is there a way to do this? Is so can someone please
explain this to me?

For the record the machine currently has Solaris 10 installed. I need
to wipe the drives and switch to the Linux distribution.

Regards,
Jeff

Hi,

jeff.dunnett@gmail.com wrote:
> Hello Everyone,
>
> First of all let me thank you for your help and patience. I am a quite
> new to this kind of thing so if I am not providing enough information
> or no following the proper ettiquette please let me know.
>
> I am trying to connected to a Sun SunFire V100 machine from an old
> NCD19r terminal. I currently connecting the terminal directly to the
> SunFire by connecting a twisted pair cable to the SunFire's serial
> port.
>
I am not really sure what a NCD19r is, but is that not a X-terminal?

> What I want to do (and can't really figure out) is use the terminal to
> boot the SunFire from a CD so I can install a Gentoo's SPARC Linux
> distrobution. Is there a way to do this? Is so can someone please
> explain this to me?
>
If the NCD19r is a Xterminal you can't boot a Unix box from it, it is
the otrher way around the Xterminal usually boots from a Unix box!

> For the record the machine currently has Solaris 10 installed. I need
> to wipe the drives and switch to the Linux distribution.
>
> Regards,
> Jeff
>
Search on the web or in a Linux NG.

But if you already have S10 installed, wipe it and install S11 or
OpenSolaris instead if you wanna play!

/michael

Michael,

First of all thanks for your reply.


Michael Laajanen wrote:
> Hi,
>
> jeff.dunnett@gmail.com wrote:
> > Hello Everyone,
> >
> > First of all let me thank you for your help and patience. I am a quite
> > new to this kind of thing so if I am not providing enough information
> > or no following the proper ettiquette please let me know.
> >
> > I am trying to connected to a Sun SunFire V100 machine from an old
> > NCD19r terminal. I currently connecting the terminal directly to the
> > SunFire by connecting a twisted pair cable to the SunFire's serial
> > port.
> >
> I am not really sure what a NCD19r is, but is that not a X-terminal?
>

Yes its an X-terminal.

> > What I want to do (and can't really figure out) is use the terminal to
> > boot the SunFire from a CD so I can install a Gentoo's SPARC Linux
> > distrobution. Is there a way to do this? Is so can someone please
> > explain this to me?
> >
> If the NCD19r is a Xterminal you can't boot a Unix box from it, it is
> the otrher way around the Xterminal usually boots from a Unix box!

Ah well it shows my ignorance in the ways of Unix and Terminal
interactions.

>
> > For the record the machine currently has Solaris 10 installed. I need
> > to wipe the drives and switch to the Linux distribution.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Jeff
> >
> Search on the web or in a Linux NG.
>
> But if you already have S10 installed, wipe it and install S11 or
> OpenSolaris instead if you wanna play!
>

What I am trying to figure out is how I would go about wiping it. The
SunFire V100 doesn't have a way to connect a monitor to it. I am not
sure how I can see the output in order to wipe S10 or install something
else. Also due to circumstance beyond my control the machine is not
longer hooked up the the network it once was.

Regards,
Jeff

jeff.dunnett@gmail.com wrote:
> What I am trying to figure out is how I would go about wiping it. The
> SunFire V100 doesn't have a way to connect a monitor to it. I am not
> sure how I can see the output in order to wipe S10 or install something
> else. Also due to circumstance beyond my control the machine is not
> longer hooked up the the network it once was.

Do you have a PC with a serial port? Make an RJ-45 to DE-9F cable (easy
if you use an RJ-45/DE-9F adapter plugged into a straight through
ethernet lead) and use the PC as a serial console. I have a V100 and a
V480 wired this way at work.