[SPARCbook] CD-ROM on a 3gx

[Federico Lucifredi]

Hugo wrote:

>Take a look at the proper information:
>http://www.solariscentral.org/
>
>Here you will find a CD-ROM document that shoudl explain it all.

... and ....

>To boot from an external SCSI CD-ROM the SUN CD-ROM FAQ is the proper
>document to read.
>
>http://saturn.tlug.org/suncdfaq/

I knew the second one already - and it does not help.... enough. I did some
progress today, though.

I verified from the second FAQ that, as I recalled, under solaris 2.5.1 the
CD-ROM has to be on SCSI-ID 6. And there it is. However, it does not get
recognized by the procedure

touch /reconfigure
reboot

nor does boot -r help. My CD drive at ID 6 has no /dev/rdsk or /dev/rdsk
device files (how do you call these in solaris ?), in spite of it testing
positively to a probe-scsi at the prom (answers at /dev/dsk/c0t6d0s0 (PD
drive) and /dev/dsk/c0t6d0s1 (CD-ROM).

Today's progress : I tested the prom and although a printenv has a variable
"boot devices" (or something similar - can't remember ) that lists only net
and floppy, the command "boot cdrom" is accepted - but it goes on to
c0t6d0s0 - the PD drive. When i issue a "boot
/iommu/sbus/espdma at 4,8400000/esp at 4,8800000/sd at 6,1:d /kernel/unix" I see the
drive light seeking, until it tells me that there is no /kernel/unix file on
that Cd, which is actually true =)

So - I have two questions:

1) what does the "d" at the end of boot
"/iommu/sbus/espdma at 4,8400000/esp at 4,8800000/sd at 6,1:d" mean ? I copied the
string from what the "boot cdom" command issues and only changed "...6,0:d"
to "6,1:d", but while I understand the rest of the string somewhat, I wonder
about that last letter (I also saw a "c" on an example found on the net).

2) I would like to know how to modify the prom command "boot cdrom' so that
it boots with my modified string above instead of the wrong one currently in
memory. I could not find sufficient information on how to do this (in fact,
I do not understand where the cdrom value is, since it does not seem to be
showing under printenv....).

3) MOST IMPORTANTLY, I need a tip on how to get the darn device files
created, since I do not know how to mount
"/iommu/sbus/espdma at 4,8400000/esp at 4,8800000/sd at 6,1:d" -- which would be the
solution to my chief problem.

Thanks for your help!!

    Federico
_________________________________________
-- "'Problem' is a bleak word for challenge" - Richard Fish

Muad'Dib of Caladan (Federico L. Lucifredi)- flucifredi at acm.org,
http://www.lucifredi.com