> > In particular, the Solaris_<N>/Tools/Boot directory on slice 0 is now
> > a symlink to slice 1.
>
> Do you know offhand whether or not Solaris 2.5.1/2.6 were this way?

Both 2.5.1 and 2.6 had a copy of slice 1 (aka the "miniroot") in slice 0
since there was enough space on the CD-ROM.

> I used
> to have legal copies of both, and a co-worker of mine offered to get me
> either (he has tons of old solaris stuff laying around)... if they're
> single-slice cdroms, I expect hacking them into letting me install from a
> non-solaris box would be much easier.

No, they have several slices, but all you need is on slice 0.

> Got a sparc with a cd-rom, unfortunately it's either the U1 or the U5, and
> the U1 was rather... painful... when I tried solaris 9 on it. IIRC it's not
> even supported in solaris 10.

Well, the UltraSparcI CPU is not supported officially.  There are
ways to make it work but they involve setting up a jumpstart server
and altering the bootloader. :-)

> >  - find a Solaris installation *DVD*, since the DVD has a copy of
> >    slice 1 in  Solaris_<N>/Tools/Boot.
>
> Hmm. Do you think the solaris install dvd image be mounted like the cds with:
> vnconfig vnd0 /path/to/dvd.iso
> mount -t cd9660 /dev/vnd0a /mnt/foo

<shelob:/root,1011# vnconfig vnd0 /home/volker/sol-10-GA-sparc-dvd.iso
<shelob:/root,1012# mount -t cd9660 /dev/vnd0a /mnt
<shelob:/root,1013# ls -la /mnt/Solaris_10/Tools/Boot
total 200
drwxr-xr-x  18 root  daemon   4096 Jan 23 03:24 ./
drwxr-xr-x   4 root  kmem     2048 Jan 23 03:24 ../
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root  daemon     16 Jan 23 03:24 .java@ -> ./tmp/root/.java
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root  daemon     13 Jan 23 03:24 .swapinfo@ -> tmp/.swapinfo
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root  daemon     13 Jan 23 03:24 .swappart@ -> tmp/.swappart
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  daemon   2048 Jan 23 03:24 .tmp_proto/
drwxr-xr-x   2 root  sys      2048 Jan 22 20:15 a/
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root  daemon      9 Jan 23 03:24 bin@ -> ./usr/bin
drwxr-xr-x   2 root  sys      2048 Jan 22 20:15 cdrom/
drwxr-xr-x  10 root  sys      8192 Jan 23 03:24 dev/
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  sys      2048 Jan 23 03:24 devices/
drwxr-xr-x  40 root  sys     24576 Jan 23 03:24 etc/
drwxr-xr-x  13 root  sys      2048 Jan 23 03:24 kernel/
drwxr-xr-x   7 root  kmem    20480 Jan 23 03:24 lib/
drwxr-xr-x   2 root  sys      2048 Jan 22 20:12 mnt/
drwxr-xr-x   2 root  sys      2048 Jan 22 20:12 opt/
drwxr-xr-x  50 root  sys      8192 Jan 23 03:24 platform/
dr-xr-xr-x   2 root  wheel    2048 Jan 22 20:12 proc/
-rw-r--r--   1 root  daemon      0 Jan 22 20:14 reconfigure
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  sys     10240 Jan 23 03:24 sbin/
drwxr-xr-x   4 root  wheel    2048 Jan 23 03:24 system/
drwxrwxrwt   4 root  sys      2048 Jan 23 03:24 tmp/
drwxr-xr-x  21 root  sys      4096 Jan 23 03:24 usr/
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root  daemon     14 Jan 23 03:24 var@ -> ./tmp/root/var

:-)

> If so, I'm inclined to think that this is the simplest option.

Indeed:  Download, mount, set up install server, install :-)

> ok show-disks
> a) /pci@1f,0/pci@1/scsi@1/disk
> b) /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/cdrom
> c) /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/disk
> d) /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ebus@1/fdthree@14,3023f0
> q) NO SELECTION
>
> <etc>
>
> And the best evidence I have that OBP sees it just fine:
> ok boot
> Boot device: /pci@1f,0/pci@1/scsi@1/disk@0,0:a  File and args: netbsd
> NetBSD IEEE 1275 Bootblock
> ..>> NetBSD/sparc64 OpenFirmware Boot, Revision 1.7
> >> (builds@works.netbsd.org, Wed Mar 23 01:17:12 UTC 2005)
> loadfile: reading header
> elf64_exec: Booting /pci@1f,0/pci@1/scsi@1/disk@0,0:a/netbsd
> 1389848@0x1000000+68464@0x1800000+4125840@0x1810b70
> symbols @ 0xfff38400 149+131376+75010 start=0x1000000
> chain: calling OF_chain(800000, cbc0, 1000000, fffa9a80, 18)
> console is /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ebus@1/se@14,400000:a
> Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004
>     The NetBSD Foundation, Inc.  All rights reserved.
> Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
>     The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
> <yadda yadda>

Weird.  It should work.  I don't have an OFW Adaptec so I can't
really help you there.


Good luck -- Volker
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Volker A. Brandt                  Consulting and Support for Sun Solaris
Brandt & Brandt Computer GmbH              WWW: http://www.bb-c.de/~vab/
Meckenheim, Germany                                   Email: vab@bb-c.de