Re: [LUG] Ultra Sparc 5 seeks keyboard for hours of debian fun

[Tom Brough <tombrough@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John Daragon wrote:

> Tom Brough wrote:
>
> > Hi All,
> >
> > I'm in the process of "evaluating" an old Ultra Sparc 5. 
> > Unfortunately it does not have the proprietary (9 pin) keyboard that 
> > this equipment desires. Instead there is a PC with terminal emulator 
> > which feeds through the serial port (very green screen).
> >
> > I have managed to get the base install of Debian 3.0r? sparc 
> > installed on it, the only problem is that I think due to emulation 
> > problems when I typed in the root password it got mangled some how 
> > because I can't log in for all I try.
>
>
> Just a couple of questions while you're waiting for a keyboard....
>
> I presume that you get a login : (or somesuch) prompt, and when you 
> type "root", it's echoed to the PC-acting-as-terminal ?
>
> Actually, what I'm getting at is this : back in the days when I 
> supported AIX for a living, many, many people had difficulty with 
> serial terminals. The two major problems were these :
>
> 1) the terminal didn't raise DCD, so the box didn't know it was out 
> there.  Fixed by setting CLOCAL for that port.
>
> 2) the terminal generated 7 bit ASCII when the box expected 8 bit. 
> Everything gets echoed to the terminal, but the box doesn't recognise 
> the CR when you hit <enter>.
>
> Of course, you may be experiencing neither of these....
>
> jd
The terminal emulation problem is now solved. When I entered the first 
character of the password it was inserting an escape sequences (during 
install). The solution was to press  delete a couple of hundred times 
for luck before entering the password. Once that was done, the rest was 
plain sailing. Lucky for me that command line passwd doesnt do any fancy 
terminal controls ! Box is now running happily as a LTSP server. 
Although the 2 x 4 Gig Ultra SCSI drives where fairly good spec when we 
bought it they seem laughable now !!!!

Tom (the older).

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