Subject: Sparc questions
To: NetBSD-Users <netbsd-users@netbsd.org>
From: Benjamin Walkenhorst <krylon@gmx.net>
List: netbsd-users
Date: 11/18/2004 21:20:51
Hello everyone,

I can finally call a SPARCstation20 my own! =)
The CPU says "Super SPARC Microprocessor TMS390" and apparently runs at 
50 MHz, the
machine has 64 MB RAM and a 2GB SCSI HDD. I put in a SCSI CD-ROM I had 
around and
installed NetBSD successfully.

Since I have no prior experience in non-x86-hardware, nor documentation for
the machine, I have some questions; I'll try to keep them as 
NetBSD-related as possible. =)

1.The hard-drive is really *loud*. I mean, whoa - that hard-drive alone 
make more
noise than all my other computer equipment combined (athlon 700 w/ 2 
ide-harddrives,
dual athlonMP 2400+ with one ide-harddrive). And I thought my computers 
were
loud already... =)
So I would like to boot it over ethernet. It seems as if I need to know 
if this machine is a
sun3 or sun4c to name the bootloader correctly. How do I find out?

2. With a lot of patience I built Window Maker from pkgsrc. But when I 
log in from xdm, I just
end up at the login screen, apparently Window Maker just exits. I 
created ~/.xsession and
put the line "exec wmaker" in it.
There is, however, a file named .xsession-errors in my home directory 
now which has the follwing
line in it: exec: /home/krylon/.xsession: permission denied
Does this mean I have to make .xsession executable? It isn't now, but it 
isn't on my PC, either,
and there it works fine.

3. Some keys on the keyboard don't work. On my PC I fix this by adding 
the line
 Option      "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys"
to XF86Config/xorg.conf, but I couldn't find a config file on the Sparc. 
Also, X just worked(tm)
without any configuration.
Can anyone enlighten me? =)

Thank you very much,
Benjamin