Linux on SunPCi-II Mini-HOWTO

Richard van den Berg

v1.6, Aug 27, 2004

Revision History
Revision 1.0Nov 15, 2001Revised by: rvdb
Revision 1.1Nov 21, 2001Revised by: rvdb
Revision 1.2Feb 02, 2002Revised by: rvdb
Revision 1.3Mar 13, 2002Revised by: rvdb
Revision 1.4Jul 13, 2003Revised by: rvdb
Revision 1.5Jun 10, 2004Revised by: rvdb
Revision 1.6Aug 27, 2004Revised by: rvdb

The purpose of this Mini-Howto is to explain how to boot and use Linux on the SunPCi-II Intel Coprocessor Card available for Sun SPARC machines.


Table of Contents
1. Copyright
1.1. Thanks
2. Preface
2.1. General Overview
3. Creating the SunPCi root directory
3.1. Making a root directory availabe to the SunPCi card
3.2. Creating the directory tree offline
3.3. Creating the directory tree by booting Linux first
3.4. Preparing your system for the first NFS boot
4. Booting the SunPCi card with an NFS-Root
4.1. Using the nfsroot and ip kernel command line options
4.2. Completing the installion
4.3. Automating the boot process
4.4. Booting SunPCi from a non-X terminal
5. Using XFree86 on an external VGA monitor

1. Copyright

(c) 2001-2003 Richard van den Berg ()

Unless otherwise stated, Linux HOWTO documents are copyrighted by their respective authors. Linux HOWTO documents may be reproduced and distributed in whole or in part, in any medium physical or electronic, as long as this copyright notice is retained on all copies. Commercial redistribution is allowed and encouraged; however, the author would like to be notified of any such distributions.

All translations, derivative works, or aggregate works incorporating any Linux HOWTO documents must be covered under this copyright notice. That is, you may not produce a derivative work from a HOWTO and impose additional restrictions on its distribution. Exceptions to these rules may be granted under certain conditions; please contact the Linux HOWTO coordinator at the address given below.

In short, we wish to promote dissemination of this information through as many channels as possible. However, we do wish to retain copyright on the HOWTO documents, and would like to be notified of any plans to redistribute the HOWTOs.

If you have questions, please contact Richard van den Berg (), the author of this mini-HOWTO.

If you have anything to add to this Mini-Howto, please mail the author (Richard van den Berg, ), with the information. Any new relevant information would be appreciated.

1.1. Thanks

I would like to express my thanks to the author of the NFS-Root-Client Mini-Howto , Ofer Maor (). His Mini-Howto helped me with the first steps in creating a NFS Root Mounted client. Coincidently, his Howto HTML pages also served as the bases for this Howto HTML collection.

Thanks to Jurij Rosenthal () for his suggestion to mention the OpenDOS F: drive.

Ulli Wölfel () wrote chapter 5 about how to use XFree86 with an external VGA monitor. Many thanks!