Ultra 5
Richard and Jason's prodding convinced me to boot up the Sparc U5. It worked! The network came up, at a good old static ip (192.168.1.2). We could ssh in. We set up a getty on ttyS1, so we can connect to the serial console with minicom. We added it to the network infrastructure, so it has a hostname and a DHCP-assigned static. We installed Apache 2, and it worked right away. Then we tried upgrading the kernel (update: because it was running on 2.2.16, which is just a tad old), and it stopped working. The computer stopped booting.
So we hooked up the gigantic 21" monitor, plugged in the keyboard, and prepared for battle. But we ran into another small snag. The keyboard, after sitting around for a few years, had accumulated some dirt, hair, soda, and various other random bits of detritus. We are speculating that some of these bits have either gotten in the way, or completely shorted out, some of the keys. While most of the keyboard seems to work fine, a few select spots don't. Some of the more important keys being SHIFT and ENTER. This makes using the ok prompt a bit less than trivial.
Finally, after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, we discovered something very cool. The LineFeed key works in lieu of Return! So, finally, we were able to boot off an install CD, mount the root FS, and set our /vmlinuz symlink back to the old kernel. AND THEN IT STARTED WORKING AGAIN.
Update: we decided it might be for the best if we started over. We reinstalled off a recent netinst disc. Everything seems to be going well. The new system even boots off a not-quite-ancient kernel.
Another update: everything's back to where we were yesterday, before we started the reinstall. Thank the lord for Debian -- everything is just an apt-get away. Now to start migrating things over...
So we hooked up the gigantic 21" monitor, plugged in the keyboard, and prepared for battle. But we ran into another small snag. The keyboard, after sitting around for a few years, had accumulated some dirt, hair, soda, and various other random bits of detritus. We are speculating that some of these bits have either gotten in the way, or completely shorted out, some of the keys. While most of the keyboard seems to work fine, a few select spots don't. Some of the more important keys being SHIFT and ENTER. This makes using the ok prompt a bit less than trivial.
Finally, after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, we discovered something very cool. The LineFeed key works in lieu of Return! So, finally, we were able to boot off an install CD, mount the root FS, and set our /vmlinuz symlink back to the old kernel. AND THEN IT STARTED WORKING AGAIN.
Update: we decided it might be for the best if we started over. We reinstalled off a recent netinst disc. Everything seems to be going well. The new system even boots off a not-quite-ancient kernel.
Another update: everything's back to where we were yesterday, before we started the reinstall. Thank the lord for Debian -- everything is just an apt-get away. Now to start migrating things over...