[SPARCbook] Tadpole drivers

[Sunder]

On Tue, 30 May 2000, Ken Hansen wrote:

> BTW, I was also building up my tadpole this weekend, and I
> found a few things of note for others to keep an eye out for:
> 
> 	Three of the patches listed in Hugo's FAQ individually
> 	are more recent than the versions of them contained in
> 	the Tadpole Package Patch bundle - they are available
> 	from Tadpole directly through Hugo's links.

To add to this: if anyone's using Solaris 7 (from Tadpole) on their
machines.  Be aware that the latest Solaris 7 Reccomended Patch cluster
(i.e. downloaded off of sunsolve.sun.com) kills the PCMCIA driver.  You'll
get "unable to load module TS102" or such) once applied.

One of the patches actually replaces the Solaris Kernel with one that
expects a new function or structure, which the Tadpole PCMCIA driver does
not have!

Re: patches not installing: there are many reasons for patch not
installing.  Check the error codes.  One reason they won't install is if
you don't have the package that the patch patches installed - in which
case this is perfectly reasonable. :)

> 	The built-in battery usage display (on the LCD) shows about 70%
> 	when the unit starts beeping and flashing the orange light, how
> 	do I sync-up the Tadpole and Solaris power monitors?

Strange. I'd suggest you recondition your battery as suggested elsewhere
in this forum (i.e. deep discharge cycles)

> 	Suggested browser - Hotjava *blows* and I am having trouble
> 	getting a recent Netscape browser from their website, any
> 	pointers? I plan on using the browser onthe built-in display,
> 	so usabilty in 800x600 is important.

Well, there is IE (puke) I wasn't able to get this piece of trash
installed.  Neither 4.0 nor 5.  How did you download netscape?  I got my
128 bit secured version by using their web forms.  (I used another machine
to download it, and then copied the gigantic file over the net interface.)

> 	Ideal partition scheme for a 6.4 Gig HD? I am used to Linux
> 	and the "one big filesystem" way of things... The laptop will
> 	be used for general web access/etc. No real heavy use.

Depends.  I generally start with letting Solaris auto select, and then I
modify.  I've made my / very big - enough to accomodate the .CPR
file. (256Mb should do very nicely.)  I've let lots of space exist on /var
mainly because pkgadd will fail with packages that like to relocate to
/var/spool/pkgs first.

I create a fairly big /opt partition (2Gb), create /opt/local and I make a
soft link from /usr/local to /opt/local.  This is to accomodate GNU
(and other) packages that like to live in /usr/local.

I generally add another 50-100mb to any other partitions (i.e.
/usr/openwin, /usr) to allow for future patches, upgrades, etc.  The
remainder goes to /export/home.

> 	The internal 14.4K modem works great (very reasonable for a
> 	local terminal session), how do I configure a PCMCIA modem?
> 	A pointer to a doc would be great!

Just guessing, but admintool might work wonders once you figure out the
device name.

> 	How is the sound support - haven't really gotten to that yet?

Weak and shitty. :)  I'd suggest you use headphones.

> 	Pointers to fun programs/uses for these machines would be
> 	appreciated, as I only got this laptop as a plaything, but I want
> 	to set up some cool stuff for dinking-around...

See sunhelp.org for pointers to FAQ's, and sunfreeware.com for pre-built
packages.  (You first gzip -d them, if they're tars, you also untar them,
then use pkgadd -d . from the same directory you've extracted them if
they're tars, or pkgadd -d filename.pkg if they're an individual file.)

----------------------Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos---------------------------
 + ^ + :Surveillance cameras|Passwords are like underwear. You don't /|\
  \|/  :aren't security.  A |share them, you don't hang them on your/\|/\
<--*-->:camera won't stop a |monitor, or under your keyboard, you   \/|\/
  /|\  :masked killer, but  |don't email them, or put them on a web  \|/
 + v + :will violate privacy|site, and you must change them very often.
--------_sunder_ at _sunder_._net_------- http://www.sunder.net ------------