| Unofficial Sun Blade 100 FAQ | |
| This is the top level of the Sun Blade 100 FAQ. Please click on a category for questions and answers to specific questions. To add information to the FAQ send a email to: henric@digital-bless.com |
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| Subcategories: Answers in this category: |
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| [Add a New Answer in "Unofficial Sun Blade 100 FAQ"] | |
Sun Blade 100 hardware questions |
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| Questions and answers relating to the Sun Blade 100's hardware. |
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| Subcategories: Answers in this category: |
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| [Add a New Answer in "Sun Blade 100 hardware questions"] | |
OpenBoot 4.x on the Sun Blade 100 |
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| Questions and Answers relating to the Sun Blade's OpenBoot 4.0 loader (or OpenBoot 4.x, as the patches are now availale to get OBP 4.5 on the Blade 100 - see ). |
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| Subcategories:
Answers in this category: |
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| [Add a New Answer in "OpenBoot 4.x on the Sun Blade 100"] | |
How do I access OpenBoot without a Sun keyboard (ie. no Stop-A)? |
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| You can always access OpenBoot using Stop-A on a Sun keyboard. However, if like me you started out with a standard PC USB keyboard, you might be unable to send Stop-A because the Stop key doesn't exist in PC land. To access OpenBoot in this situation, you can press the power button twice during the power on sequence, just after the power on beep has sounded. A little experimentation might be required to get the timing right! michael@wells.org.uk |
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| You can also access OpenBoot by pressing CTRL-BREAK;
on a PC-style keyboard its the same as STOP-A. mrbill@mrbill.net |
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What happened to mkp? |
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| OBP 4.0 doesn't have an "mkp" command that was useful
for changing the hostid of the computer (see http://www.squirrel.com/squirrel/sun-nvram-hostid.faq.html ) Bye-bye
mkp ! arig@my-deja.com |
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How can I get an Openboot prompt from Solaris? |
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| Check out the man page for shutdown, you can tell it
to come back up in an init state that is the open boot prompt, also check
out the halt and init commands, again the man pages might be helpful. I do
not have a system I can try these on, however from memory I am pretty sure
reading these man pages will help. Michael mciaccio@houston.rr.com |
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The Solaris 8 incantationshutdown -i 0 nowwill shutdown the Blade 100 in one minute an drop to the 'ok' prompt. jwoehr@attglobal.net |
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| or enter halt or do an
<init 0> norbert.hanke@it-sec.com |
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For UNIX System V.4 (and Solaris is a SVR4 UNIX) use
shutdown -g 0 -i 0 -y (using /usr/sbin/shutdown)or use the Berkeley (BSD UNIX) variant shutdown -h now (using /usr/ucb/shutdown) hanno@iXnet.de |
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| Pressing Stop-A is also hooks you into Openboot. michael@wells.org.uk |
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| ...although some OpenBoot commands (like probe-scsi, which isn't particularly applicable on a stock Sun Blade 100) will change the state so that it is impossible to just "go" to get back to Solaris. Be careful! rlhamil@mindwarp.smart.net |
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How do I convert MAC addresses to filenames for TFTP? |
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This script will help you convert a MAC address into the filename required by a TFTP server.
#!/bin/sh
#
# ident "@(#) conv.sh - ip address conversion"
# Hanno Schroeder, iXnet GmbH
#
# Convert IP address in dot-separated format to hex string
#
if [ $# != 1 ] ; then
echo "usage: $0 ip-address" ; exit 1
fi
echo "$1" | awk 'BEGIN { FS="." }
{ printf("%2.2x%2.2x%2.2x%2.2x\n", $1, $2, $3, $4) }' | \
sed -e 'y/abcdef/ABCDEF/'
michael@wells.org.uk |
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Is there are a fix for problems with booting CD devices? |
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From Lars Tunkrans: This new Version: OBP 4.5 Exists as SUN PATCH 111179-03 on Sunsolve.sun.com I came across it since I was searching for a soloution to Why new CDRW drives could not boot from the OS CD's I found this bug reference 4462386 unable to boot SB-100 from LG cdrom drive Included in things fixed in OBP 4.5 and decided to try if they fixed it for all high speed CD devices. It seems that they did. My Yamaha CRW3200E is able to Boot from CD now !michael@wells.org.uk |
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How do I boot in single user mode? |
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When you turn it on, press stop-a. At the ok prompt, type "boot -s".michael@wells.org.uk |
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How do I set the screen resolution in Open Boot Prom? |
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****** Warning **************************
Read the WHOLE text through before doing anything.
Always Power OFF all equipment before (dis)connecting any signal cables.
Read the WHOLE text through before doing anything.
************* END Warning **************
If you have an Older or unusual VGA monitor It migth be nessesary to
change the default resolution/scanrate that the SUNBlade100 uses in Prom mode
and in single user/command line window mode.
Before you can attach your old Monitor you will probably have to borrow a fairly
new standard monitor that supports 1152x900x76 which is what the SUN 17"
monitor uses for default resolution. Attach the "Standard" monitor to the SB100
and do the following procedures:
( Another way to do it is ofcourse to attach a NULL-MODEM cable between a
PC COM1 port and the Serial 1 port on the SUNblade an remove the Sunblades
keyboard which will make the SUNBLADE use the Serial 1 port as its Console.
Then set up a Hyperterminal/VT220 emulator session to the SUN from the PC. )
The following command's shows the syntax for changing the default resolution/Scanrate
into something you VGA monitor can use. This Change is done in the Open Boot Prom mode.
To enter OBP it is nessesary to press the keys [STOP] and [A] before UNIX starts
to load when the "ok" prompt show, type the following
ok setenv output-device screen:r800x600x75
ok reset-all
the colon between the " screen" and the resolution setting is esential, it does not work
otherwise,..... I tried without colon too and nothing happened until X started up.
Obviously you will have to enter a Resoultion/Scanrate triple that the intended
monitor does support and that the VGA driver chip supports. I can not know
which resolutions your old Monitor works with, that you have to find out yourself.
To find out which resolutions the VGA chip supports,
boot up UNIX ( with boot -s ) and type :
m64config -prconf
This shows a list of about 50 different resolution/scanrate triples that the
ATI chip in the SUNBLADE can be set to. The oldest and most generic should be:
640x480x60
****** Caution ****************************
You must be careful not to set the resolution scanrate triple to a value that the
monitor you are using to configure with cant handle. The SUN 17" does NOT
support 640x480x60.
********** Caution ***********************
Then you should probably switch monitors to the one you intended to use and
verify that you get an image up on the Tube. If you dont, switch monitors again
and try anew.
To continue and boot Solaris in single user mode give the command
boot -s
while in OBP mode.
The m64config command actually configures the Xwindows server. So to be on the
safe side you sould do a :
m64config -res 800x600x75
While doing this procedure it is probably good NOT
to have the Xwindows environment autostart at each reboot. So you can temporarily
disable the startscript /etc/rc2.d/S99dtlogin by renaming the file to a name
that does not have a leading capital "S".
Try different resolutions with m64config. You must Kill Xwindows and restart X
between each change. If you try a resolution that doesnt work with your monitor
you will loose control of the machine. You will probably have to COld start it to
recover.
Then when you are happy that the Xwindows resolution works,
renable S99dtlogin by renaming it again to the original name.
That should be it more or less .......
lars.tunkrans@bredband.net, michael@wells.org.uk |
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What memory can I use in the Sun Blade 100? |
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| The supported memory type is PC133MHz DIMMs, which are standard for many Intel machines also. However, note that the memory should also be ECC (error checking and correction), which typically costs more. I recently bought a 256MB DIMM for my Sun Blade 100, and rather than do too much experimenting I bought a Sun part number compatible DIMM (ie. a cheap, but recognised alternative part for the Blade 100). The supplier was http://www.b2net.co.uk/. The chip I have is manufactured by Transcend (www.transcendusa.com), with part number TS256MSU6992. The Sun part number for a 256MB DIMM is X6992A. michael@wells.org.uk |
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| i purchased an additional 256mb from crucial
(www.crucial.com) and have had not any problems last i checked it was $70+ (includes free ups 2nd day shipping) http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.asp?model=Sun+Blade+100+Workstation&x=9&y=9 |
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| The crucial website helps you determine the memory to
buy, and it includes the Blade 100. I bought 4 256mb modules which work
fine. Crucial is a name brand and the price was about $60 each. There is a
big jump in price for the 512mb ones though. eastman@cnrf.nola.navy.mil |
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| Crucial has dropped their prices for memory down to $43 for 256MB. Also, I noticed that the original memory in my Sun Blade 100 was a 128MB from Crucial. mcannon@theriver.com |
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| I picked up a 512Mb from Crucial. I'm running it with
the orginal 128Mb - it all runs like a champ. agabriel@home.tzo.org |
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| I bought a 256MB DIMM from Crucial UK. It was the same
as the Micron* part that was already fitted in my machine (only larger). I
have been using it with no problems. * Crucial is a division of Micron. komadori@myrealbox.com |
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| I recently purchased four 512 meg micron pc133 ecc
unbuffered dimms. they cost me $310 total. they detect fine on start up
and i am currently burning them in. i expect no problems. movado@hushmail.com |
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| I found out I can use standard, noname PC133 3.3V ECC
unbuffered SDRAM DIMMs (7-7.5 ns). Got them from a local webshop. I bought
two 256 MB DIMMs, and they work fine along with the 128 MB DIMM that came
with my Blade 100. anders+nospam@totem.fix.no |
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| Can I use registered memory in the blade 100 as long
as it is ECC CL-3 and pc133? 168 pin dimm of course helme@lmi.net |
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Can I use a hard drive larger than 15GB? |
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| Sun advertise the Sun Blade 100 in several supported configurations, and it does seem from their literature that the largest hard drive configuration supported is 2 x 15GB. You can use a drive of any capacity supported by OpenBoot though. I've replaced the 15GB Seagate drive with a 40GB Western Digital, for instance (the Seagate is quite slow and noisy). I had no problems at all doing this, either from the software or the hardware. michael@wells.org.uk |
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| BTW, the IBM DeskStar 7200 RPM drives are also reported on the net to work well with the Sun Blade 100s. geoffrey@deepest.com |
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| I have replaced the original Seagate drive with a 60
GB IBM drive from the new Deskstar 60GXP series. Fast, quite silent for a
7200 rpm drive, no problems at all. dirks@trigenio.de |
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| Note - the limit of the IDE interface in the Sun Blade 100 is 137GB. michael@wells.org.uk |
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| Just installed Maxtor's new 100GB drive and it works
just fine. Best bang for the buck given only two drive bays in the Blade
100. ctwp@hotmail.com |
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| You can use any IDE drive, however WATCH for
OVERHEATING. 10k rpm drives are also an option, just add some drive
cooler, or 1 or 2 x 40 mm or 60 mm fan(s). That is cheap stuff, make sure
you buy them with 4 pin power connectors and Y-cable. teodor@btinternet.com |
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| When you are setting the jumpers on the the secondary
hard drive make sure you use "cable select". Do not use "master slave".
Also, I had the repartition the original drive and overwrite the boot
sector before I could get it to work as a secondary drive. Don't know if
this is absolutely necessary, but the only way I got mine to work. mcannon@theriver.com |
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| I recently replaced the hard drive in my sb100 with a Fujitsu MPG3204AH. It's a 20gb drive that is extremely quick (for IDE at least) and almost completely silient. i guess it's got liquid bearings so it makes less noise, which is quite a relief from the seagate drive sun packages with the sb100's. k736@mail.marist.edu |
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| Personally, I LIKE noisy hard
drives. I have sucessfully installed an IBM 36.4 GB U2 SCSI external drive
using an Antares P-0068 card. Works fine, but the card is not supported by
default so you install on the IDE drive then do a full dump of filesystem
onto the SCSI drive. Just about any drive should work, the card suport is
the issue here. dwbass0196@hotmail.com |
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| I've added Seagate ST380021A 7200 rpm, 80GB drives to a couple of Sun Blade100s with good results, so far. - Cheers, Charley cpaff@seismo.berkeley.edu |
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| Chalk one up for the WD 120 Gb drive. 1/2 hour
install. totally compat. Thanks Charlie! tom_francen@midtechcorp.com |
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Can I overclock the Sun Blade 100? |
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| It would appear that JP3 on the motherboard controls the CPU clock rate (configured during boot). There are several clock rates ennumerated using letters of the alphabet. If you buy a SPARC IIe chip, the right setting is provided with it - I cannot find a list of the settings easily anywhere on Sun's site.
Is it worth trying? The SPARC chip family is not renowned for being
overclockable, and it may become unstable (or be destroyed). The idiom of
overclocking is a very "Intel" thing. :-) The performance of the machine
is readily improved by fitting extra memory, faster drives and graphics
chips. If you try overclocking your Sparc IIe and succeed, please let us
know. |
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Here are the CPU jumper settings quoted from the Sun FE Handbook
JP3(1-2) JP3(3-4) JP3(5-6)
500MHz out out out
550MHz in out out
600MHz out in out
650MHz in out out
Naturally, by doing this you will void your warantee. I also asume no
liability if you are stupid enough to overclock your CPU!
gould@cis.ohio-state.edu |
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Here are comparative results from /usr/platform/sun4u/sbin/prtdiag:
==================================== 500MHz ======================
E$ CPU CPU Temperature
CPU Freq Size Impl. Mask Die Ambient
--- -------- ---------- ------ ---- -------- --------
0 502 MHz 256KB US-IIe 1.4 50 C 31 C
==================================== 550MHz ======================
E$ CPU CPU Temperature
CPU Freq Size Impl. Mask Die Ambient
--- -------- ---------- ------ ---- -------- --------
0 550 MHz 256KB US-IIe 1.4 60 C 33 C
It (seems) ok. I've put the chip back to 500MHz though.
michael@wells.org.uk |
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fyi, i overclocked a netra x1 (which has a usIIe, too):
System Configuration: Sun Microsystems sun4u Sun Netra X1 (UltraSPARC-IIe 600MHz)
Run Ecache CPU CPU
Brd CPU Module MHz MB Impl. Mask
--- --- ------- ----- ------ ------ ----
0 0 0 600 0.2 13 1.4
some benchmarks:
dnetc v2.8009-460-CTR-00051910 for Solaris (Ultra)
* Benchmark for RC5 core #0 (Generic RC5 core)
* Benchmark for OGR core #0 (GARSP 5.13)
Processor Speed = [Speed Jumper = 7] 400 MHz
- RC5 0.00:00:16.77 [797,713.05 keys/sec]
- OGR 0.00:00:16.17 [2,024,554.48 nodes/sec]
Processor Speed = [Speed Jumper = 6] 450 MHz
- RC5 0.00:00:16.21 [896,274.89 keys/sec]
- OGR 0.00:00:16.19 [2,283,313.34 nodes/sec]
Processor Speed = [Speed Jumper = 5] 500 MHz
- RC5 0.00:00:16.82 [994,541.73 keys/sec]
- OGR 0.00:00:16.23 [2,528,802.77 nodes/sec]
Processor Speed = [Speed Jumper = 4] 550 MHz
- RC5 0.00:00:16.24 [1,097,655.66 keys/sec]
- OGR 0.00:00:16.29 [2,784,867.89 nodes/sec]
Processor Speed = [Speed Jumper = 3] 600 MHz
- RC5 0.00:00:16.66 [1,195,864.10 keys/sec]
- OGR 0.00:00:16.33 [3,037,066.44 nodes/sec]
Processor Speed = [Speed Jumper = 2] 650 MHz
Processor Speed = [Speed Jumper = 1] 700 MHz
Processor Speed = [Speed Jumper = 0] 750 MHz
note:
above 650 mhz, the netra goes unstable &
the speedjumper is a 3 bit jumper near the psu.
randy@smue.net |
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| Overclocking the NetraX1's UltraSparcIIe may not
result in exactly the performace mentioned above. Try clocking up each
step until the machine becomes unstable. Be sure to check it's operation
.. it may boot, but may act funny. My NetraX1 wouldn't boot at 600Mhz and
above, was unstable at 550Mhz, and I finally settled on 500Mhz. lion@leonine.com |
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What's the build quality like? |
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| The Sun Blade is a mixed bag. The metal chassis and cover are sturdy enough to support a 21" monitor, but the front plate is quite ugly. The aesthetics are of a reasonably inexpensive machine, especially compared to the Ultra 5 which is a very solid machine throughout. That said, I think Sun made a sensible decision not to overspend on the casing, but to give better value for money by keeping costs down.
Inside, the build quality is very good. There are useful access levers for most of the slots, which eliminate much of the screwdriver madness usually found inside a desktop. :-) The only problem I've had is that the hard drive ribbon cable tends to be a little close to the running line of the right hand side of the lid; when you replace the lid you have to be careful not to snag it. The SPARC chip runs cool without a fan (it has a heatsink) and the chassis fan is quiet, but not a low-noise version. The PSU is a cheap 200W one, but is not under much load due to the low power consumption of the whole machine. The CD-ROM unit is a fairly standard Lite-On 48x drive, which is a brand I've seen before and (although it's cheap) it's reliable. I haven't seen the DVD drive so can't comment yet. However, I did notice that the audio connector from the CD isn't connected to the sound card, which is quite a bizarre oversight. There are internal diagrams of the Blade 100 in the service manual,
which is linked on http://sunblade100.wells.org.uk/.
There are photos of most of the machine here: http://sunblade100.wells.org.uk/photos. |
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Which Sun Blade 100 configuration is best? |
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| It is a good idea to buy the least possible from Sun, because they charge a lot for the parts. For example, they charge over 200 UK pounds for a Seagate hard drive worth 70 pounds. One of the advantages of the Sun Blade 100 is that it can take quite a lot of PC hardware, so it's a great idea to buy a cheap configuration and upgrade it! The parts I found it necessary to upgrade were: 1) The hard drive. The 15GB drive is both too small and too slow. It is also noisy. I use a Western Digital 40GB drive with a good access time and 2MB cache, and the difference is absolutely unbelievable. If you use swap space, you'll notice it even more. 2) Memory. If you're running Solaris 8, 128MB is definitely not enough. You will need at least 256MB to avoid paging all the time. I have fitted 384MB, and that's comfortable. 3) Graphics. The built in 8MB card will do 1280x1024 with a colour depth of 24 bits. The Expert 3D Lite card can go to 32 bits at 1600x1200 (a much more useful resolution!). It can also go higher than this, in different aspect ratios. 4) Everything else is perfect! ;-) michael@wells.org.uk |
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I've added some new hardware. How do I get Solaris to detect it? |
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| During boot, Solaris checks for the existence of a
file called "reconfigure" in the root directory. If you touch this file,
the /dev tree is rebuilt at the next reboot. This works on hard drives,
network cards etc. It is very likely that you will need to do more
configuration once you've done a reconfigure, ie. it doesn't handle the
actual configuration of the hardware, just the detection of it. michael@wells.org.uk |
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| If you forgot to 'boot -r' or 'touch /reconfigure',
simply issue 'devfsadm' as root. This will cause devfsadmd to add any
missing /devices entries and associated /dev symlinks. dp@eng.sun.com |
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| You can also use the "drvconfig" command to redetect
hardware without rebooting. gypsyx@mac.com |
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Can I use a Cable Modem with the Sun Blade 100? |
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| Yes, but only if there is a way for the Sun Blade 100 to talk to the modem. Your best bet will be a modem that uses a standard network cable to connect to the computer. For example, I have a 3Com Cable Modem (Model CMX), and simply connecting the network cable and running a DHCP client gives me access. In fact, if you configure Solaris to use DHCP from the start then you have really no problems. It's easier than I expected. There seem to be a lot of cable modems and DSL devices that use USB, and of course you might not have any choice because of your cable company. BT supply a USB interface for their ADSL service, for instance. Although the Sun Blade 100 has plenty of USB ports, I'm not aware of any drivers Solaris to support cable modems or DSL - does anyone have any information? michael@wells.org.uk |
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| I got cable modem to work with my blade 100 using DHCP
from my linksys 1 port router. You just have to make sure that the router
is working properly. Why the 1 port, because you could pick one up for
less than $50 USD, plug a switch on the other end and you could run X over
the network. This was my solution to cut down cost of buying
monitors. But beware that most cable ISP are only supporting windows boxes, so get that to work and ping www, ping mail, ping mails to get the proper ip addresses and host names to configure your router and server. Good luck mike@tatteredcover.com |
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I got mine to work on @home with a "surfing machine 100" cable modem, using a simple FreeSCO router, assigning the Blade an IP 192.168.168.6 on the near side of the router, the Gateway as the router 192.168.168.1, then getting the DNS info off of the FreeSCO system. No need to enter a domain name. Detailed DHCP and IP info, such as your @Home DNS server IP, can be obtained in Windows by typing "winipcfg". The DNS info gets put into the /etc/resolv.conf file. You may need to make this file, I did. Format: nameserver xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx nameserver xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx nameserver 127.0.0.1 Replace the x's with relevent DNS server info from your service That's it. Nothing else in the file. Make sure you have a switch to run @ 100Mbps across your LAN. Ryanryaneverett5@hotmail.com, michael@wells.org.uk |
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Why does the motherboard sometimes make a high pitched noise? |
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| Depending on the video output, the Blade sometimes
makes a very unpleasant, high-pitched electronic noise. The noise is
continuous and seems to change like a modem modulating when you move
things on screen. It is often heard when viewing dark web pages with
bright text in Netscape, for example. The worst thing is that the noise
can be quite loud.
I looked into this problem, as have Sun, and it's due to signal coupling in the motherboard. The sound chip is right next to the graphics chip, and when you run at 24 bits colour mode the graphics chip operates at a high enough frequency to cause breakthrough. I have found that completely disconnecting the internal speaker from the motherboard (front right on the riser board, under the fan cable) solves the problem. If you use the 8 bit colour mode, this also addresses the problem. This is obviously a serious flaw in the design of the Blade! Workarounds: 1. Leave or set back the display depth to 8 bit: % m64config -depth 8 Then exit out of CDE to restart the X server. 2. Unplug the internal speaker, and use external speakers connected to headphone jack (for un-powered) or lineout (for powered speakers). 3. Install alternative graphics PCI card to be used as primary video
interface. |
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| OK, I submitted this bug to Sun, the problem was escalated and I was sent a new motherboard revision (-06) that FIXED the problem. All of you that have this problem should call sun, refer to: BugID: 4450970 EscID: 530299 And Sun will ship you (-06) motherboards without the problem! /wfr Fredrik exce7@ce.chalmers.se |
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| Sun Microsystems Ltd. Guillemont Park Minley Road Blackwater, Camberley Surrey GU17 9QG U.K. Tel: +44 870-600-3222 I have just called in with this bugid and escid, and Sun have promised to sort it out. I will post more information on how they handle it once I've got a replacement (or otherwise!). |
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| I have a Sun engineer with me right now! He's brought a revision 4 board to replace the revision 5 board in my machine, and believes that the problem is solved with a revision 5 board...despite this, the real fix is in the revision 6 board (not available in the UK). I am amazed! WHat a ridiculous waste of time! The engineer agrees.
In summary, to fix the high pitched noise for good, you need an -O6 rev
50 board. The fix involves different capacitors and resistors in the
circuit connected to the sound chip. |
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| How do you check which board revision # you've got? Is
it physically labeled on the motherboard, part of the Serial # or can this
be detected by hardware? Thanks for your help Laurent de Segur ldesegur@mac.com |
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| Also, how does one browse the bugid's and search their resolutions of the sun web site. I have googled for about an hour and can't seem to find any place that index's bugid's. prozac@utulsa.edu |
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Does the Blade use a normal PC monitor connection, or 13W3? |
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| It's the standard high density D-connector as seen on PC hardware. The supported frequencies are typical of a PC, also. The Sun Blade 100 does not support 13W3 connections or fixed frequency monitors without a fairly sophisticated adapter (one source for such converters is Black Box Technology). michael@wells.org.uk |
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| It does work with a 13W3 Multi Frequency Monitor using a Sun 13W3 to VGA Adapter. P/N 530-2917-01. I have verified this using 2 different revisions of a 17-inch SUN GDM-17E20 monitor & a 20-inch SUN GDM-20E10. rortiz@mktdata.com |
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| I'm doing fine with a GDM-20D10 using adaptor 7012
listed on http://www.si87.com/Products/Cabling/Adapters/adapters.html (shop around for yourself, and include shipping costs when you compare) It runs fine for me at 1280x1024x76 (depth 24), which appears to be the highest resolution that particular monitor can handle. For 13W3 monitors without pigtails, you may want to use an adaptor with the reverse gender (7011 on the same page as an example), and a VGA cable, although I've heard some say that the quality of many VGA cables is not as good, so if you already have a good 13W3 cable, you might as well use the same adaptor as for a monitor with a pigtail. rlhamil@mindwarp.smart.net |
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Can I use my <advanced PC device> on the Blade? |
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| On the face of it, the Sun Blade 100 has a lot of useful worldly connections, eg. USB and FireWire, PCI. In practice, many devices such as USB scanners, printers, network cards and modems are very unlikely to be supported under Solaris or Linux. Where exceptions exist it is because someone has written a driver, either freely or commercially. Hopefully this situation will improve over time.
While it does have a PC-standard PCI bus, you won't find many PCI
devices designed for Intel machines that can be used in the Blade (thanks
to OSS supporting Solaris, soundcards are an exception). |
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| As of May 2001, the only supported FireWire/IEEE-1394 device is the Sun video camera. According to the usoc man page, any digital camera which conforms to the 1394 Trade Association Camera Working Group's 1394-based Digital Camera Specification V1.04 should work. The following page details USB device support in Solaris as of the Solaris 8 4/01 release: http://docs.sun.com:80/ab2/coll.736.2/S8ADMINSUPP/@Ab2PageView/5169 In short, standard USB keyboards, mice, storage devices (Zip/Jaz/CD-RW/etc.) and printers are supported. USB printers suffer from the same problem as non-USB printers under Linux - while the you may be able to talk to them, you need to speak their language (PostScript, PCL, or some proprietary format) in order to print to them. alanc@alum.calberkeley.org |
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| ADS Pyro 1394
Webcam can be used with Solaris. Tested using SunForum on SunBlade
100. olio@zait.uni-bremen.de, michael@wells.org.uk |
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| http://www.sun.com/io_technologies/sparc.html
contains a list of supported devices of various descriptions. michael@wells.org.uk |
|
| Helpful documentation on 1394 support is hard to come
by. Should you find any, please pass them on. I have a Canon Optura
(miniDV) that works great on my Mac/Win machines... it's a real shame the
SB100 can't do a thing with it (SunForum and video work). :-( rmiller@gov.nf.ca |
|
Can I use a standard CD-ROM, DVD, CDRW drive in the Blade? |
|
| Yes! You can replace the internal CD-ROM drive with
another IDE device, including multifunction devices like CD-RWs, or
combined DVD/CD-ROM drives. michael@wells.org.uk |
|
| When you replace the internal CD-ROM with some other
device you hope it will extend the CD-ROM functionality. With CD-RW this
doesn't happen - you loose an option to perform a boot from a bootable
CD-ROM media. I checked Plextor, HP, Teac CD-RWs and no one was able to
boot... :( arig@my-deja.com |
|
| Can we have more details on this? I have heard from
people who succeeded and some who didn't (so there's probably more to this
item to document yet). michael@wells.org.uk |
|
| Fromn the "FAQ: CD-ROM Drives on Sun Hardware" by Kyle F. Downey http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/~ljg/kdowney@annie.wellesley.edu
(30 Jun 1994) (see, this is old!) Sun supports 2048 byte instead of 512 byte formatting, which presents the first barrier to booting from or mounting a CD-ROM designed for the PC or the Mac. My guess is, the typical CD-RW drives either don't support 2048 byte/sector at all or you "only" need to activate this feature. Via software or typically via jumper. hbackert@gabacom.de |
|
| Well, I'm able to boot from my Samsung SW-408 CD-RW
drive. No problem at all. I was a bit concerned at first, but decided to
try and it works flawlessly. Seems like some drives work and some dont...
:) pri@as1-6-3.rg.m.bonet.se |
|
| http://saturn.tlug.org/suncdfaq/ This is an excellent first stop for information! michael@wells.org.uk |
|
| The 8x8x24x IDE CDRW From Yamaha works and boots just
fine. I assume the newer (and faster) devices will work too. roccati at pobox com |
|
| How to burn a cd on a sun blade 100 with solaris 8 ? I tried with GEAR PRO FOR UNIX (but he can't find the CD recorder (looking for a scsi). Can someone help ? abdel@infidis.com |
|
I have a Predator CD-RW connected by USB. It must use the USB-SCSI adaptor that is currently supported in Solaris 8. Running 'cdrw -l' recognized it, and I just entered: 'mkisofs -r my_dir 2> /dev/null | cdrw -i -p 1' Come back in 10 minutes and pop off the CD.ssmith@itis.com |
|
I am currently looking at buying and setting up a CDRW on a Sunblade 100? CDRecord is the software that comes as default with Solaris 8. Can anybody recommend which are the "solaris/sunblade 100 friendly" CDRWs to use and which is the best "only" software to use? I am considering a Plextor 401040, but most Solaris literature refers to SCSI interfaces and not IDE? Are they compatable? What are the pitfalls? Guess there is only one way to find out..?tony.phillips@latticesemi.com |
|
| Pioneer DVD-R/RW Writer "DVR-A03" ATAPI model BOOT
Solaris 8 as "boot cdrom" ktakahas@inter.NL.net |
|
| Plexwriter 24/10/40 (PX-W2410TA) does not boot with
"boot cdrom". Otherwise seems fine so far. zagar@arlut.utexas.edu |
|
Success with SONY CD-RW CRX175E and Sun's SUNWcdrw package on Sol8 10/01.
One odd behaviour:
% cdrw -i
No CD writers found or no media in the drive.
But if you put a disc in the drive:
%cdrw -i
Node | Connected Device | Device type
----------------------+--------------------------------+-----------------
cdrom0 | SONY CD-RW CRX175E 1.0j | CD Reader/Writer
vmcintyr@atnf.csiro.au |
|
I've replaced the original CD-rom drive with a LiteOn DVD 163-D drive. Works like a charm, I can even watch full-screen DVDs thanks to Xine. Because the original SunBlade CD-Rom is also from LiteOn I could simply take off the purple front-cover and drawer and snap them on the DVD-drive, so it even looks nice. Only the volume-knob on the DVD has the 'old' color but that's not really a problem and something I might change once the warranty expires.p.boven@chello.nl |
|
With the LiteON DVD 163D drive, are you able to boot from it? I would like to get one, but don't want to have to deal with the booting issue mentioned above. Thankswfdeller@cox.net |
|
|
I ordered a Lite-On DVD 163 drive as mentioned previously in the FAQ but was shipped a Lite-On model #XJ-HD166S instead. No worries though. I plugged it in did a "boot -r", then shut down and did a "boot cdrom" with the Solaris9 Sparc edition installation DVD in the drive and it booted up just fine. The only thing is, the door on the drive faceplate is slightly different so I couldn't swap the gray faceplate from the old CDROM drive to the DVD drive like you can on the Lite-On 163. For work machines, I don't care. So there you have it, and easy $40 upgrade. Good luck. John Tomaszewski |
|
How many IDE devices can I install? |
|
| Just like in a PC, you get a primary and secondary
channel, and each can support two devices to give you a total of four UDMA
66 IDE devices connected. There is only enough space to install two hard
drives (or other 3.5" devices) and a 5.25" CD-ROM though. michael@wells.org.uk |
|
Are any other soundcards supported? |
|
| Many soundcards and apps supported by OpenSound with a
64 bit driver, which you can find at http://www.4front-tech.com/solaris.html. SB PCI cards are supported by the free SBPCI driver at http://www.bolthole.com/solaris/sbpci/. michael@wells.org.uk |
|
| Creative/E-MU also make Sound Blaster cards
specifically for Sparc/Solaris machines. See http://sun.emu.com/index.html
for more information. alanc@alum.calberkeley.org, michael@wells.org.uk |
|
How fast is the Sun Blade 100? |
|
Here is a table for comparison of SPECInt and SPECfp figures. Comparing SPEC95 and SPEC2000 figures directly, using the Ultra 5 and Ultra 10 values (for which there are values in both benchmarks), is *not* valid due to the greater or lesser significance of chip caches in the test, and the smaller 256Kb cache on the 500MHz IIe of the Sun Blade 100. Workstation SPECint95 SPECfp95 SPARCstation 5/110 1.6 2.0 SPARCstation 5/170 3.3 2.9 SPARCstation 20/71 3.1 3.1 Ultra 1/140 5.4 7.9 Ultra 1/170E 6.3 9.1 Ultra 5/270 9.1 10.1 Ultra 10/300 12.1 12.9 Ultra 5/360 12.1 15.5 Ultra 5/333, 10/333 14.1 18.3 Ultra 5/400 16.5 21.9 Ultra 10/440 17.9 22.7 Blade 100 20.0 21.0 Workstation SPECint2000 SPECfp2000 Ultra 10/300 100 100 Ultra 5/333, 10/333 133 126 Blade 100 174 181 Blade 1000 model 1600 313 339 Blade 1000 model 1750 395 421 Blade 1000 model 1900 467 482 Note that the integer (SPECint) performance is generally representative of normal use. The Sun Blade 100 is nowhere near as fast as a Pentium system costing the same amount at either SPECint or SPECfp - that's not really the point in owning a Sun Blade 100, but it's worth mentioning.michael@wells.org.uk |
|
Real world performance. I have a basic spec Sunblade 100 (128M RAM etc.) and an Ultra 10 300MHz with a creator 3D card and 256M RAM. I find that the Ultra 10 is faster on graphic intensive apps, both 3D and 2D, especially games like Quake and Doom. However the Sunblade does to seem to be quicker on more CPU intensive stuff where there is very little in the way of graphics activity. This is especially noticable when compiling stuff.richard.close@marconi.com |
|
| Despite the smaller cache, it is about the same as
equivalent UltraSparc IIi (with a larger cache) because the cache is, in
this case, internal (and not external as in the IIi), AFAIK. For the 3D video card : geometry performance is 4.1M tris/sec on a Blade 100 with an expert3d-lite (compared to 1.4M tris/sec on an Ultra 10 with a Creator3D). (all the details are on the 'official' faq). dago@fpms.ac.be, michael@wells.org.uk |
|
| One more note! The Spec benchmarks for the Blade 100
are detailed here: http://www.specbench.org/osg/cpu2000/results/res2001q1/cpu2000-20010306-00490.html michael@wells.org.uk |
|
| I've got an expert 3d-lite in my sunblade and run at
the top res and due to the fairly low speed of PCI bus in the sunblade the
performance isn't quite as good as an Ultra 10 with a Creator 3d. It's
most noticeable on repaint operations. However the 3d performance on the sunblade is definately better than a dual Ultra 60 running a 'full' Expert-3d card. Really it depends what you're doing, if you're doing intensive I/O stuff then a sunblade 100 isn't going to be a good choice, but if you're doing development or low on budget and need an UltraSPARC it's fantastic. imacinto@bigpond.net.au |
|
The following is some up-to-date revelant comparison spec numbers for the Blade 100 and U10. It comes from the following official url: http://sun.systemnews.com/system-news/jobdir/submitted/2002.07/6622/6622.htm l As you can see, the int performance is just a bit less, and fp somewhat more. I am not sure why the 440 U10 does not appear on the spec.org site. Q. How does the Sun Blade 100 compare in features and performance to the Ultra 10 workstation ? A. Below are the specs of the two machines. Sun Blade 100 Ultra 10 ------------- -------- Processor UltraSPARC-IIe UltraSPARC-IIi Clock Speed 500-MHz 440-MHz External Cache 256 KB(on chip) 2 MB SPECint_2000 174 180 SPECfp_2000 182 165 Max Memory 2 GB 1 GB Graphics PGX64, PGX24,PGX32,PGX64 Expert3D-lite Creator3D, Elite3D m3/m6 Networking 10/100 BASE-T 10/100 BASE-T I/O Expansion 3 PCI 3 PCI 4 USB Ports 2 IEEE 1394 ports Max Internal 2x20GB EIDE 2x20GB EIDE storage CD-ROM CD-ROM DVD-ROM Form Factor pizza box mini-towe From Manwe Sulimo [manwe-sulimo@attbi.com]michael@wells.org.uk |
|
Which printers are supported? |
|
| I've haven't tested this exhaustively, but gimp-print and xwprint are both supported under Solaris. In addition to native PostScript printers, this should give you access to a wide range of printer drivers, possibly even including USB. If you've tried a printer under Solaris 8 on the Sun Blade 100, please feel free to add some more details here!
xwprint: http://xwtools.automatix.de/startE.htm (commercial) gimp-print: http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/ (GNU open source) I have got my Epson Photo 870 to work with Solaris 8 via the parallel
port, using xwprint. |
|
| Lexmark Optra E310 printers come with solaris drivers.
They are pretty cheap laser printers. Less than 300$ stonent@hotmail.com |
|
| I am using a 'HP DeskJet 400' on the Blade with no
problems (anymore ^_^). I use GhostScript in order to generate PCL data
from PostScript files. Instructions on how to set-up a print filter to do
this are here:- http://toocool.calpoly.edu/solaris/solaris-printing.html komadori@myrealbox.com |
|
| Has anyone tried using CUPS? This is the free
implementation of ESP Print Pro. It has great support for HP, Epson,
Lexmark, Canon, and Okidata printers. I run it on Linux,and on an HP 132+
HP-UX 10.20 (shrug, what can I do, HP's the standard at work?-( . Check http://www.cups.org/ . They have a Solaris
8 SPARC version. Jeffrey Johnson johjeff@yahoo.com |
|
| I purchased a Lexmark M412 thinking I needed a
'Solaris Ready' printer. I downloaded the updated driver for this printer
from the Lexmark site only to find that it also supports several HP
devices and it has one driver called 'Generic PCL' which may work with any
HP device. I have been able to use this driver to print to a networked HP 4+ with no problems printing both graphics and text. It may not work for everyone, but it is free and worth checking out - it is working beautifully for me. pbone@knology.net |
|
Does the Sun Blade 100 support FireWire hard drives? |
|
| I really want firewire hard drive support for my blade so I can chain many drives off the blade. So, I began pinging people at Sun about Firewire (IEEE 1394) hard drive support on Solaris 8. Currently the only supported Firewire device is the Sun Visual Camera thingie. However, is the answer that I got back from a Sun contact was that Firewall Drive support was planned and would be in a later release of Solaris. However, there was no date for the release of this feature addition. geoffrey@deepest.com |
|
| It's rumored that FireWire hardrive support for the Sun Blade is about a year out. :-( geoffrey@deepest.com |
|
How can I make the Sun Blade 100 quieter? |
|
| 1) Do you have problems with the internal speaker? If you have one of the motherboards affected by the high pitched noise, please see the relevant discussion in the FAQ!
2) Disconnect the chassis fan. I tried this and was not surprised to find that the machine runs very hot. The temperature rises to an unacceptable level - definitely not recommended. Replace the fan with a quieter one perhaps. 3) Disconnect the PSU fan. Again, the temperature will rise to an unacceptable level. Definitely not recommended. You could fit a 300W PSU or even high spec power supply, which would run cooler due to the higher spec being under-utilised. I still consider this risky. 4) Fit a quieter hard drive. The internal Seagate drive is very noisy - a good Western Digital or IBM drive is substantially less noisy (and may have other benefits like speed and higher capacity). 5) Use quiet components (eg. from www.quietpc.com). You can buy quiet fans, hard drive enclosures (you'll need to find space to fit that - it needs a 5.25" bay) and even quiet CPU fans which could be useful if you're going to try overclocking the SPARC. Any other ideas would be of interest! |
|
Which USB devices are supported? |
|
See http://www.sun.com/io_technologies/storagesolutions.html. This list is far from exhaustive though! Castlewood ORB 2.2GB External USB Drive FlashGate (SmartMedia Reader/Writer USB version) FlashGate CF (Compact Flash Reader/Writer USB version) Flashgate Dual Iomega Zip USB 100 Iomega Zip USB 250 Iomega 1GB/2GB Jaz with Jaz USB Adapter Iomega USB Clik! PC Card Doc Iomega USB Zip CD Plexwriter PX-W8432Ti Plexwriter PX-W12432Ti Plexwriter PX-W12432Te plexwriter PX-W8220Ti Plexwriter PX-W8220Te SCSI to USB Converter (SCM Microsystems) Spressa CRX140 e/ch Spressa CRX140 s/c [EOL'ed]michael@wells.org.uk |
|
| Most USB mice (those that follow the USB Human
Interface Device standards) will work on a SunBlade 100, but only one
mouse-type device at a time can be connected (the rest will be ignored),
and only three buttons are supported by the USB mouse driver. There is no
support in Solaris for mouse wheels at this time. (I use a USB Logitech MouseMan Wheel mouse on my SunBlade - the thumb and wheel buttons both show up as button 2 and rolling the wheel just exercises my finger muscles, but otherwise it works fine.) alanc@alum.calberkeley.org |
|
| The /extremely/ common SANDISK IMAGEMATE SDDR-31 CF
reader also works. These CF readers are available just about everywhere
for around $30 or less. lion@leonine.com |
|
Which monitors are supported? |
|
| You should be able to use any standard PC monitor! This is another area where the Sun Blade 100's similarity to a PC comes into its own. michael@wells.org.uk |
|
| I purchased a Philips 109B flat screen monitor and it is working fine. I was a little concerned at first because at the default rate of 1152x900 (what the blade uses straight out of the box)it had flicker in the corners. I used m64config to change the resolution to 1280x1024x76 because the help said that 76 was the highest refresh rate. However, my monitor says it is working at 91 refresh rate. There is a discrepency on the .sun site about supported refresh rates. In the chart it only goes up to 76, but in the text it says 85 for the pgx64 video card. I don't know if the sun blade was "smart" enough to detect that my Philips has a default refresh of 91 or what, all I know is I have a nice 1280x1024 with no flicker. Price for Philips 109B is around $385. mcannon@theriver.com |
|
| I tried IIYAMA PRO 511 and 512 22inch monitors.
Neither worked. Previous versions 502 and 510 did work. Looking now for
alternatives. louise@camscan.com |
|
| I have a Samsung 170s flat panel LCD on my m64 Blade
100 at 1280x1024x24 resolution ($600 at the local Sam's Club). The only
difficulty has been that the VGA cable bundled with the monitor doesn't
work properly with the system -- why, I don't know. A third-party shielded
SVGA cable works perfectly with the setup. Colleagues and students popping
into the office are usually envious. Now to find an Expert3D-Lite at a
decent price for the system. rafege@mail.com |
|
| I tried a Dell 1702FP 17" LCD display on my Blade 100 and it works fine, after a reboot. The Sun frame buffer senses the display at boot time and the Dell senses the signal. This is a pretty nice display - lightweight, wide viewing angle, pretty bright. But these LCD jobs are not as sharp as Trinitrons in displaying fine detail and very small fonts look chunky. In all, this Dell, at $675 (US university pricing) is a bargain next to the Sun 18.1" LCD at twice the price. The 18" display looks less detailed as it has the same max resolution as the 17"ers (1280x1024). Cheers, Charley... cpaff@seismo.berkeley.edu |
|
| Tried a Samsung SyncMaster 760VTFT with no success. The 760VTFT is supposed to have a preset 1280x1024x76 mode for Sun workstations, however monitor would not work in all 1280x1024 and 1152x900 and 1152x864 modes. Viewsonic VE170 worked in the 1152x864x75 mode. I ended up with a Sony SDM-S71 and it works fine in the 1152x864x75 mode. No luck in the 1280x1024 modes. I used the m64config -res 1280x1024x75 try command to test various modes. Sony may need more than 10 seconds to adjust? Next step, find a crt monitor that will work in 1280x1024 modes and then switch with LCD monitor. etendo@usgs.gov |
|
| 1280x1024x60 mode works on Sony SDM-S71. However, only
in 8-bit color. Stay with 1152x864x75 if you want 24-bit color. Should
have mentioned in early message that Samsung crt monitor SyncMaster 753DF
worked the Blade 100 with factory set mode of 1152x900x76. etendo@usgs.gov |
|
What is the card reader for? |
|
| Every Sun Blade 100 ships with a card reader, just above the floppy drive. According to the service manual (see here http://docs.sun.com/htmlcoll/coll.724.1/iso-8859-1/SBLADE100SVC/appdC.htm#108318),
the card reader isn't yet supported in Solaris. In fact, it is supported -
but it's probably not very useful! The card reader can be used to authenticate via a PAM module (an alternative to typing in passwords). This is quite common on the SunRay appliances that Sun sell, but without a card and a writer, I imagine only a minority of users will have any use for this interface. Anyone used it in earnest? michael@wells.org.uk |
|
| Surely, the card "reader" can also be used to write
data to a card. Unlike, say, a magnetic card, the hardware interface is
the same for both reading and writing*. Communicating with a smart card
involves the exchange of APDUs over a clocked serial interface. * 'Some' types of storage technolagy require a higher write voltage to be supplied. komadori@myrealbox.com |
|
| You certainly know more about this than I do! However, I've been unable to find any evidence of card writing software. I wish Sun would make their intentions clearer on this subject. It is quite suprising that we cannot determine what this hardware is capable of, even though every Blade 100 out there has it installed. michael@wells.org.uk |
|
| I don't know which releases of Solaris support this,
but under 'Solaris 8 4/01' the 'Smart Card Console' tool in the workspace
menu is used to configure smart cards. komadori@myrealbox.com |
|
| I have sol8 7/01 which apparently supports the reader.
However when I run smartcard -c admin It barfs and spews spurious
messges: SmartcardServerException: Thrown from C code;com.sun.smartcard.SmartcardServerException: SmartcardServerException: Thrown from C code;com.sun.smartcard.SmartcardServerException: SmartcardServerException: Thrown from C code;com.sun.smartcard.SmartcardServerException: SmartcardServerException: Thrown from C code eewwwww... Geoffrey P geof.press@bigpond.com |
|
| In response to the java exceptions, I got them too
until I realized I'd cleaned a little too much out of my /etc/inetd.conf.
Make sure you have: 100150/1 tli rpc/ticotsord wait root /usr/sbin/ocfserv ocfserv and also make sure you're running rpc (/etc/init.d/rpc start). After fixing both these problems, installing patch 109887-08, and checking out http://docs.sun.com/ab2/coll.47.11/SMARTADMIN/ things started working. tclancy@uiuc.edu |
|
| In response to the java exceptions, I got them too
until I realized I'd cleaned a little too much out of my /etc/inetd.conf.
Make sure you have: tclancy@uiuc.edu |
|
Can I use a serial console to access the Blade? |
|
| how can i connect to the sunblade 100 via console
connection with a terminal emulation? dont feel like wasting a monitor
sitting on top of it doing nothing thx mtoung@yahoo.com |
|
| If you boot the Sun Blade 100 without a keyboard attached, it will automatically switch to using the serial port for the console. michael@wells.org.uk |
|
| What kind of cable should use? should i use a
crossover cable with female connectors to connect the SB100 and a PC?
Thanks, hugeng@yahoo.co.jp |
|
| Use a null modem cable, 9600 baud, 8N1. You can get a little more information on this kind of thing in the Sun Blade 100 hardware supplement, here: http://docs.sun.com/htmlcoll/coll.724.2/iso-8859-1/SBLADE100SVC/chap3.htm#18745. Hope this helps! michael@wells.org.uk |
|
What problems are there with the SunBlade 100 clock? |
|
| The SunBlade 100 clock runs fast by apx. 300ppm. (Sun inernal BugID 4460876, apparently affects all 'grover' systems) This causes it to gain 1.5 seconds per hour. This is more than xntpd can adjust, especially if you have patch 109667 (-01, -02, -03) installed. This patch prevents xntpd from 'stepping' the clock, only allowing gradual changes. This patch is part of the recommended set and most likely already installed on your system. Solution: add the line set sys_tick_freq = 5549020 to your /etc/system (you must reboot for this change to take effect). This will more or less correct the speed of the clock, and bring it within a range xntpd can cope with. (So this entry is probably also usefull if you don't use xntpd) If you have the patch 109667 (-01, -02, -03) installed , you should also add this line to your /etc/inet/ntp.conf: disable pll A furture patch will allow xntpd to work with the kernel PLL again and then this line must be removed. This information is directly from Sun, but for some reason the bug in question is not 'public' and cannot be viewed on SunSolve. Further information on NTP: see the NTP blueprints on www.sun.com/blueprints p.boven@chello.nl |
|
| The bugid #4460876 'Hummingbird (UIIe) system clocks
consistently run fast' is fixed with the latest kernel patch for solaris 8
108528-13. It is now available (Feb/2002) from sunsolve. axel@csbl.net |
|
Can the system beep volume be adjusted? |
|
Damn that beep is loud! I don't have an answer yet,
but I note that the service manual says (appendix C, page C-5),
"An internal speaker is connected to the motherboard through the riser card and used by SW to make beep sounds as well as audio sound output"So the beep is on the ac97 soundchip. Further, /usr/include/sys/ac97.h includes a register for beep volume and has some #defines related to the beep. So someone with more system savvy than I should be able to use this to develop a program to adjust the beep volume (and maybe even pitch?). There are also references at boot time to a beep device, grbeep, but I can't find anything else on that. fine@head-cfa.harvard.edu |
|
I came up with the following script to whack it completely when ran as root.. (Of course YMMV/etc)
#!/usr/bin/ksh
echo "$0: Verifying grbeep is loaded"
cnt=`/usr/sbin/modinfo | /usr/bin/grep grbeep | /usr/bin/wc -l`
if [ $cnt != 1 ]
then
echo "$0: grbeep appears not to be loaded"
exit 1
fi
echo "$0: Locating ddi_putb call address"
addr=`echo "grbeep_on/20I" | /usr/bin/mdb -k | /usr/bin/grep ddi | /usr/bin/grep put | /usr/bin/awk '{ print $1 }'`
addrcnt=`echo $addr | /usr/bin/wc -w`
if [ $addrcnt != 1 ]
then
echo "$0: Located incorrect address count: $addrcnt: Aborting..."
exit 1
fi
echo "$addr/W 01000000" | /usr/bin/mdb -kw
#echo "$addr/W 01000000"
echo "$0: Beeps are now off.."
/usr/bin/printf "\007"
exit 0
dwholland@teammutant.com |
|
PS: This is a Solaris 8 script, only tested on 4/01, and 7/01dwholland@teammutant.com |
|
If you prefer not to poke at things in memory (this
reminds me of blindfold brainsurgery - experts only!!), you can just
sayunix% xset b offWhatever you try, it seems the volume cannot be adjusted, just turned off. The manpage says: Note that not all hardware can vary the bell characteristics. wwwatnf@atnf.csiro.au |
|
| If you are running CDE under desktop control(?) there
is a beep control icon. Anyway, I don't have CDE in front of me there is a
beep controller in the CDE desktop. wcbasquin@yahoo.com |
|
| Just tried the beebstyle manager from CDE The display
suggests that I can adjust volume, tone and duration But it does not
affect the beebs at all. johanj@sci.kun.nl |
|
| Solaris 9 offers the new Xsun -audiobell feature that
uses /dev/audio to play beeps instead of the internal beeper, allowing
full control of volume and pitch via 'xset b' or the CDE control
panel. http://docs.sun.com:80/ab2/coll.753.6/SOLREVIEW/@Ab2PageView/3135 alanc@alum.calberkeley.org |
|
Which PCI devices are supported? |
|
See http://www.sun.com/io_technologies/pci/io.html for a list of Solaris-ready devices. This list seems hardly ever to be updated, though. The most commonly asked question is which SCSI controllers can be used: Ultra SCSI: Adaptec, Inc. Ultra 160 SCSI Card - 29160 Adaptec, Inc. Ultra 160 SCSI Card - 39160 Adaptec, Inc. Ultra 160 SCSI Card - 29160N Adaptec, Inc. Ultra 160 SCSI Card - 29160PL LVD interfaces: Antares Microsystems P-1059 PCI ConServer-FE/U2WL Fast Ethernet & LVD SCSI-U2WL Antares Microsystems P-0068 PCI LVD Ultra-2 SCSI - Single Channel Antares Microsystems P-0069 PCI LVD Ultra-2 SCSI - Dual Channelmichael@wells.org.uk |
|
| The Ultra160 Drivers listed on the Adaptec for Solaris
only support Solaris x86 The drivers available from Adaptec for the: AHA-2940UW-OF AHA-2944UW-OF AHA-3940UW-OF AHA-3944UW-OF Cards are Supported under Solaris 2.5.1, 2.6 A search of the SunSolve Database shows no entries for the Ultra160's and Solaris Sparc. straav@zobo.doit.wisc.edu |
|
| A quote from the Solaris CDRW faq talking about a U-10(http://www.cae.wisc.edu/~gerdts/ultra10_cdrecord.shtml): "Presumably you bought an Ultra 10 because of it's low price. Buying a Sun SCSI card could cause you to loose quite a bit of the price advantage, as the dual-channel single-ended UltraSCSI host adapter (Sun Part # X6540A) has a list price of over $500 (US, August 1999 price). According to prtdiag(1M) (/usr/platform/sun4u/sbin/prtdiag), the dual-channel UltraSCSI PCI card and the SunSwift PCI card both use the Symbios 53C875 chip. Experience tells me that third party SCSI host adapters that use the same Symbios chip will work. In my Ultra 10, I have installed a Koutech Systems, Inc. Kouwell Ultra-Wide SCSI Card model KW-801V75, which cost about $80 from Aberdeen, Inc. My CD-RW works fine with it, although I do have a slight problem booting my IBM UltraSCSI disk with it. (I can boot from the drive, but whenever a full reset of the system occurs (reboot from Solaris, power cycle, or reset from openboot) I get a "Trap 3E" error. I suspect that this is related to the lack of a terminator jumper on the drive. I from the openboot ok prompt I can 'boot.) Update 6/29/2000: This problem with the IBM drive seems to have been fixed by a suggestion made by ssimpson@Sequoia.seattleschools.org. The suggestion was to disable sync negotiation by setting the appropriate jumper. " So there you go an $80 NCR/SYMBIOS/LSI scsi card should work. stonent@hotmail.com |
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These should all work:
Antares PCI SCSI-U2WL 80 MB/s LVD SCSI 64-bit PCI
Antares PCI SCSI-2U2WL dual 80 MB/s LVD SCSI 64-bit PCI
Antares PCI SCSI-2U3WL dual 160 MB/s LVD SCSI 64-bit PCI
Asus SC875 40 MB/s UW SCSI 32-bit PCI
We're using the Asus card ourselves but it's quite hard to get
as it's not produced any more. Some other ncr/sym53c875 based
cards should work too (but not Tekram?).
Also, Intraserver has LVD host adapters that are supported under
SPARC Solaris.
msiren@damicon.fi |
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| Hi. There IS help: Just buy the DawiControl DC-2976UW SCSI Controller. For just about EUR 130,-- you'll get a perfect solution for connecting any SCSI device to your Blade100. The controller is based on a Symbios Logic Chipset (53C875), so the Blade recognizes this PCI device as a "native" one (Sun's own Swift Controller has got exactly the same Chipset, as far as I know). So, just plug it in, connect any SCSI device externally - and that's it. I currently have a DAT drive, a jaz drive, a SCSI-CDRW, a SCSI-DVD and a SCSI Hard Disk connected. This is the perfect solution for all my needs. andreas@dunse.com |
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| The Tekram DC-390F is a Symbios 53C875-based card that
provides Ultra-Wide scsi and is natively supported by Solaris. I've used
them in both my Ultra 5 and sunblade 100 systems. bphinz@home.com |
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| For network interface drivers, see http://garrett.damore.org/software/ethernet/index.shtml. michael@wells.org.uk |
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| OK. I'm a SCSI-Drive freak but I've got only X86
hardware. I've got the following cards: 19160 (Adaptec) 2940UW (Adaptec)
Will either of -these- work? javven@attbi.com |
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Can I use a PS2 mouse and/or keyboard? |
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| No, the Blade doesn't have a connector on the backplane for any PS/2 devices (only USB). There is a stub on the motherboard for PS2 connectors, which has not been tested to work. Very few other Sun machines use purely USB, so OpenBoot is aware of PS/2. USB adaptors for PS/2 keyboards and mice can work, but results are variable, inexplicably, especially at boot when your keyboard might not be detected. I had problems with a PS/2 Microsoft keyboard but success with an unbranded, cheap keyboard that had a USB connector. I quickly found it's hard to work without a Sun keyboard under Solaris! Please feel free to append further information here. michael@wells.org.uk |
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| I use a QVS USB-to-PS/2 keyboard and mouse adaptor, part number USB-PS2Y. The Blade won't boot with it plugged in (no video, no net, nothing but a power LED), but it seems to work fine if I just unplug the Sun keyboard and mouse and plug in the adaptor after the machine is up. I checked, and it didn't work to just plug a keyboard into the adaptor and use the Sun USB mouse along with a PS/2 PC keyboard. jay@ccs.neu.edu |
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| Works fine with Logitech Internet Navigator keyboard and Logitech optical mouse. The only issue is STOP-A -- none of the other suggestions (ctrl-break, shift-break) would get me a boot prompt. The only way i was able to get a boot prompt was by pressing the power button right after the initial power on beep, as suggested in another faq. elimATern-e.org |
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| I am now using my Sun Blade 100 with my PS2 KVM. I'm using GWC Tech's USB to PS/2 Adapter... Part number UC 451N. This even came with a table for the Sun keyboard equivalents on the Windows PS2 keyboard. Yes, you can do a Stop-A. grin Search for it via google, I found it for US $35.00. rnelson@ronspace.org |
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| FYI, the GWC "UC 451N" and the QVS USB-PS2Y appear to be the same device. |
