[CLUE-Tech] Re: SPARC systems/Linux

[Casagrande, Steve]

Some good info here:

http://www.obsolyte.com/sun_ipx/

<snip>

My NVRAM is dead. What can I do?
If you're getting messages about a bad IDPROM, or your ethernet address is
coming up as ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff, and the machine is refusing to boot, then
your NVRAM is probably dead. The item is a DIP style, socketed chip with
battery backed RAM holding parameters about your machine (and a clock). When
the battery dies, it's time to order a replacement, and then reprogram the
NVRAM with a new hardware ethernet address and some other parameters. Please
read the NVRAM FAQ to learn how to resurrect your machine from the dead. 

<snip>

How do I boot from a CDROM?
You'll need a bootable ISO image CDROM. You'll need a SCSI CDROM drive with
a 512k block size (most Toshiba and NEC mechanisms support this) set to SCSI
ID #6. At the prom prompt, type "b cdrom" or "boot cdrom", depending upon
which prom revision you're using - in many cases, either will work, but if
one doesn't the other will. If you're looking for a copy of Linux,
www.linuxiso.org has downloadable ISO images you can burn onto a CD
yourself. If you don't have a burner, cheapbytes sells very inexpensive
copies. 


Steve Casagrande