[SunRescue] Help with IPC serial ports...

[Kurt Mosiejczuk]

I recently got a Sparc IPC with 24 megs and a 207meg hard drive.
I decided what I'd like to do is make it a masquerading gateway
for internet access.  

So, I installed a minimal Debian install on it (I've got approx 40meg
free after the install, and 51meg is dedicated to swap!)
I moved my modem from my IPX to my IPC.  

This is where the problems are.  Anything greater than 9600 baud
ends up with serial input overruns.  I even recompiled the kernel to
take out the cruft I don't need.  Still problems.

So, I started searching the net for help.  Seems that I may just be out
of luck.  Apparently the zs8530s on almost all sparcs have just a 3-byte
FIFO, no DMA, and require LOTS of CPU intervention.  After all this, I'm 
amazed my IPX had no problems at 38400.

So, I'm looking at the possibility of making this little IPC a file server
for my network by hanging two 1.3G drives off of it and using NFS and
Samba.

BUT, I've not given up hope yet.  I'd like to know if anyone out there has
any suggestions to get those serial ports working...

Barring that, I'd even be willing to try an Sbus serial card if someone has
one...  But, I believe those generally run some serious money, and then there
would be issues such as linux or some sort of BSD support.

What are your thoughts, folks?

Thanks,
  --Kurt