Best Upgrade OS for Sun4u? (Currently Aurora 1.0)

[Cal Webster]

2.98
2.99
Corona
Fedora 9

I've been running Aurora on an UltraSparc since Red Hat dropped support
following RHL 6.2. At that time I did a tedious upgrade, manually
handling dependencies. I kept upgrading until we had everything we
needed. It currently runs Aurora 1.0. I haven't even glanced at the
mailing list since I got 1.0 stable. We've recently completed a
migration of all the services to an Intel-based RHEL 4 server so I'm
anxious to rebuild this old workhorse.

It looks like the old Aurora site (http://auroralinux.org/) hasn't been
touched in a while. I went to the "New
Wiki" (http://wiki.auroralinux.net/) but it looks kind of sparse right
now too, at least for someone wanting to install the latest from
scratch.

I don't understand what "Corona" is. Is it like the "rawhide" where the
latest builds are tested?

I was thinking that Aurora 2.99 was what I needed but I don't see any
"Updates" directory for it on the ibiblio.org mirror. Is it still being
maintained?

To my surprise I searched for "sparc" on the Fedora site and found pages
for "Fedora SPARC". It looks like it's compatible with my sun4u (v9) but
I don't see any download links to ISO images. Neither is there mention
of it on the "Get Fedora" page where the other architectures are listed.
Is this Fedora port in distribution yet?


[***@winggear root]# cat /proc/cpuinfo
cpu : TI UltraSparc IIi
fpu : UltraSparc IIi integrated FPU
promlib : Version 3 Revision 14
prom : 3.14.0
type : sun4u
ncpus probed : 1
ncpus active : 1
Cpu0Bogo : 599.65
Cpu0ClkTck : 0000000011e1daf8
MMU Type : Spitfire

I'd appreciate pointers to a Sparc Fedora repo, if one exists.
Alternatively, I'd be glad to get peoples thoughts on where to begin
upgrading my happy little Sparc server.

Thanks!

Cal Webster

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

Post by Cal Webster
To my surprise I searched for "sparc" on the Fedora site and found pages
for "Fedora SPARC". It looks like it's compatible with my sun4u (v9) but
I don't see any download links to ISO images. Neither is there mention
of it on the "Get Fedora" page where the other architectures are listed.
Is this Fedora port in distribution yet?

No. We hit a rather painful anaconda bug that we think might be SILO
related, and haven't had the time to properly debug it. The rest of the
F9 sparc tree (optimized for sun4u) is done though.

Dennis should be able to provide the "how to upgrade to Fedora SPARC 9
via yum" walkthrough... he's done it a few times at this point.

~spot

[Cal Webster]

Oh great! I take it I'd probably need to install Aurora 2.99 first? If
so, I'll get started downloading the ISO's so I'm ready. I'm getting
ready to leave for the day so I don't want to get anyone wound up and
then leave them hanging.

./Cal

Post by Tom "spot" Callaway

Post by Cal Webster
To my surprise I searched for "sparc" on the Fedora site and found pages
for "Fedora SPARC". It looks like it's compatible with my sun4u (v9) but
I don't see any download links to ISO images. Neither is there mention
of it on the "Get Fedora" page where the other architectures are listed.
Is this Fedora port in distribution yet?

No. We hit a rather painful anaconda bug that we think might be SILO
related, and haven't had the time to properly debug it. The rest of the
F9 sparc tree (optimized for sun4u) is done though.
Dennis should be able to provide the "how to upgrade to Fedora SPARC 9
via yum" walkthrough... he's done it a few times at this point.
~spot

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

Post by Cal Webster
Oh great! I take it I'd probably need to install Aurora 2.99 first? If
so, I'll get started downloading the ISO's so I'm ready. I'm getting
ready to leave for the day so I don't want to get anyone wound up and
then leave them hanging.

Not sure offhand, to be honest. I haven't had as much time as I'd like
to play with SPARC related stuff lately (which is why this list is quiet
and the website is out of date). Again, I defer to Dennis Gilmore, who's
been doing more of that sort of thing lately.

~spot