[SPARCbook] (more) linux install troubles

[Michael Lorenz]

Hi there,

>I managed to get debian installed, but they use a 2.2-era kernel,
Yup, so do most recent distros ( or at least they ship a 2.2 kernel with a current one ), 2.4.x seems to be rather badly broken on any but x86, couldn't get any 2.4.x to boot on my ppc - 2.2 is fine.

>anyone have a "favorite" kernel for using their sparcbooks?
NetBSD supports power management, serial, the usual Sun stuff ( kbd/mouse/scsi/ethernet ), the internal modem ( more or less... ), drivers for PCMCIA and audio are well under way. No ISDN yet 
so I'm stuck with Solaris 2.6 which works a lot better than I expected ( after upgrading to 64MB ... ).

>While I'm at it, what is the status on X for these things?  Is it
>still restricted to 8bpp unaccelerated?
On NetBSD - yes. On Linux - you need a 2.4ish kernel, that gives at least more colors, no idea about acceleration.

have fun
Michael