[Aurora-sparc-user] Challenge to both Aurora and Debian Sparc lists

[kab33 at charter.net]

Hi

I too have had many problems with Aurora installs.  Especially on 
older Suns with SCSI CD drives.  And it does make one feel like a 
newbie - even after many years with Linux on Suns.

I found it to usually be the CD media or the CD drive.  If you have 
any other CD drive, try it.  I have the best luck with an IDE to SCSI 
converter (a part I picked up off ebay and is worth it weight in 
gold) and  I use an standard PC  IDE CD or DVD drive (side note: the 
converter even works with disk drives - so its cool to see a 320GB 
IDE HD come up as a fully working SCSI drive on a SCSI only Sun!!). 
The converter I have is from Storigen Systems (but there is no part 
number on it).  It has a SCA SCSI connector (so I also have to use a 
SCA to 50 PIN SCSI converter too - these are plentiful on ebay) on 
one end and a standard IDE connector on the other.  These little guys 
come up on ebay maybe twice a year.  So, if you cannot get one of 
those . . .

BE SURE YOU BURN YOUR CD or DVD at 1x or 2x .  Also, try using 
different brands of CD/DVD media.  Also try a different CDrom or 
better a SCSI DVD drive if you can find one.  All that being said, I 
still have problems with the install hanging.

The solution that has been working best for me is to do a custom 
install and de-select all the extra software.  You end up with about 
630MB install of a very basic Aurora.   I have a text file with some 
879 RPMs that build out a very full featured Aurora.  I  boot the 
fresh Aurora install (text only at this point) and run my RPM list 
through a script that does:
	`rpm -Uvh --nodeps /the_aurora_RPMS/$rpm_from_list `
to install all the rest of the RPMs.  I get some errors, and I run 
the script 2 or 3 times to get all the RPMs loaded.

I am not sure what kind of problems this solution will cause.  But it 
works for me.   I do have some small odd conf problems that I think 
are caused by this method.  But, I can get KDE started with vncserver 
and work from the comfort my couch to fix up the build.

If you want to try this method,  I'll email to you the list of RPMs 
(or to this list of others are interested).

Your Mileage May Vary!!!

Keith