[rescue] Sparc 20 question

Fri Oct 10 11:15:50 CDT 2003

On Fri, 2003-10-10 at 04:12, Innfomail at aol.com wrote:
> Yea!!! My Sparc 20 works but I have a problem. 
> 
> It boots up with SunOS 5.7 but I can't get past the service password in 
> single user mode by using boot -b. Security seems disabled.
> 
> Normally it boots, declares the usr filesystem damaged and terminates the 
> program to the OK prompt.

???? If it doesnt ask you for the root password for maintenance, then it
may be too damaged to recover....

> 
> I have a Solaris 3.3 CD but this seems to install SunOS 5.3.
> 

I think you mean Solaris 2.3.  And yes, that would install  SunOS 5.3.

> I looked into the Education License for Solaris 9. Downloading the free CDs 
> is not possible for me over a 56K dialup. I am thinking of ordering the CD ROM 
> kit for 9 or possibly Solaris 8.

If you want a Solaris 7 kit, contact me off list, I think I have a few
of them around, and I'd want less than any kit Sun would sell you :-)

> 
> It is a single Supersparc TI TMS390Z57GF processor, 192 Meg RAM, TurboGX and 
> a Fast Enet/Fast/Wide SCSI Card. Also a SCSI II CDROM in a 411 case with a 
> 20D10 monitor.

To really know what the proc is, at the open boot prom do a
'module-info' command....

> 
> My question is should I format the disk and load the Solaris 3.3 on it from 
> the CD. Or should I work on cracking the password and keep the 5.7 on it.
> 

If the loaded OS isn't beyind recovery, you should be able to boot from
the Solaris 2.3 CD, fsck the filesystems on your hard drive, and mount
the root partition off the hard drive, remove the root password from the
/etc/shadow file, unmount the mounts, reboot, and log in as root with
no password.

> Or should I give up and get Solaris 8 or 9. It is just going to be a 
> tinkering workstation for a while, mostly to play with Solaris. maybe down the road it 
> will turn into a WebServer.

Depends on your CPU....  being as you have one CPU, and I'm going to
guess something like an SM40, SM41, SM50, or SM51 I'd either go with
Solaris 7 or 2.6 (anything earlier just gets 'buggier', 'slower', or
the like... unless you go back to SunOS 4.x) or go with a BSD (
OpenBSD or NetBSD) which should be pretty quick on that box.

-- Curt

> 
> Thanks for the help.
> Paxton
> Astoria, OR
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