[SunRescue] SparcstationIPC

[Dave Reader]

On Thu, 1 Feb 2001, Dan Lane wrote:

> 
> Hi guys,
> 
> I have a couple of IPCs here and was hoping to run Debian (my linux distro
> of choice) or NetBSD. The problem I have is that Debian likes to run amok
> with packages and NetBSD just plain old won't fit a base install on a
> 200Mb disk!

I'm successfully running debian potato on several IPC's - even those with
200Mb disks.

The trick is this.. when installing, answer "simple" for how to choose
package to install, then select "finish" without selecting any packages.

When done, run dselect and un-select the packages which it has assumed you
will want but which are not yet installed. (otherwise they'll get
installed next time...)

You can fit potato in around 40-60Mb of disk, or thereabouts, fairly
easily.

this was one of my gripes with potato when it was released - if you just
follow the install through with dselect as you would have done with slink,
you end up with an awful lot of packages which you didnt ask
for. installing this way seems to avoid that.

> Can anyone tell me where I can find Slackware/sparc boot floppys (if any
> exist, I couldn't find them!) or suggest another OS to run?
> 
> Alternatively I could probably get hold of a bigger scsi drive, does
> anyone know what size drive an IPC can support?

I've transplanted some sun 424's into a couple of my ipcs - but if you can
find some low power 1gb disks they'll work too.

I've got seagate 31200N's in a my pair of ipx's, and they don't seem to
get too hot.

d.