9fans archive / 1998 / 11 / 68 /    prev next

From: Elliott Hughes Elliott.Hughes@gen...
Subject: [9fans] kfs on sparc
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 09:55:22 +0100 (CET)

> Finally, the entry for the sparc in BOOTING(8) only mentions
> net booting. Can a Sun be made into a stand alone Plan9
> workstation?

good question. making a SPARC kernel with kfs is easy (the
Plan 9 FAQ even tells you how). booting that off the net is
similarly easy. booting from a local disc... that part has
escaped me. in the end i worked out that the only way it
was going to work was if i left a minimal Solaris partition
on my disc with the second- and third-stage boot loaders
and replaced the Unix kernel with the Plan 9 one. sadly a
friend had kindly installed Solaris 2.6 over Solaris 2.5 on
my little old IPC, and the boot loader in 2.6 only supports
ELF binaries. i don't have an ELF kernel, and frankly haven't
the faintest idea how to make one easily. versions of
Solaris earlier than 2.6 may (i'm wary of being more
confident, though i know forsyth used to boot an SLX from
local disc) support booting of a Plan 9 kernel.

as if one needed any more reason _not_ to "upgrade" to a
new version of Solaris...

[my IPC is currently running a stripped-down Solaris 2.6
install and has a very minor role on the network. and to
think it could have been running acme and 5s!]

-- 
quest'avventura // ah, come diavolo // mai finira'?