[SunRescue] Re: Cheap SS4/5/10's?

[ChrisPowellChris_Powell at mitel.com]

On Fri, 11 Aug 2000 19:39:45 -0700, Paul Khoury - Tech Support wrote:

> I got a nice paycheck (since it's my last day tomorrow), and am thinking
> of finally upgrading one of my SPARCs.
> Any CONs of using a SS4?  I plan on using ONLY external HD's.  Also,
> is memory standard, or proprietary?  I'd prefer an SS10, but I'd like to stay
> below $150 if possible, for something with 64MB of RAM, and
> NO hard drives (already got 5.2GB).

SS4/SS5 uses Sun proprietary memory. Real pain as proprietary=expensive.
My SS5 is chugging with 32Mb as RAM is too darn expensive. Might look
at computerfriend.com though....

> Also, do I just need to reinstall Solaris, and keep existing settings,
> since I'd be going from Sun4c to Sun4m?

I did this recently (sun4c IPC to sun4m SS10). I thought it was just
going to be a disk swap, but all the sun4m kernel bits will be missing
and the devices will be set-up for sun4c. I ended up doing this:

1. BACK THE DRIVE UP!
2. Boot from CD. Mount the root partition of the drive on /a and install
    the /platform/sun4m and /usr/platform/sun4m hierarchies and machine
    type (SUNW,....) links. Use 'installboot' to install the boot block.
3. Remove everything under /a/dev and /a/devices.
4. Tar /dev and /devices (i.e. the devices directories of your CD booted
    system). Untar them in /a/dev and /a/devices.
5. Remove /a/etc/path_to_inst
6. Halt the system, and reboot with -ravs (rebuild, ask, verbose,
    single-user) kernel flags. Hit return for everything EXCEPT when it
    asks to recreate /etc/path_to_inst (answer y).
 
I certainly wouldn't guarantee this working every time (hence the need
for a backup), but it worked for me (so far!).
 
Painless (sort of) :)


Chris.