META Information
This section lists the meta-information of this document. The
hows, whys, location and changes to the structure of the document
are documented here. The main content begins in the next chapter.
The Purpose of this Document
This document is to serve as a comprehensive HOWTO and FAQ
collection regarding the Sun JavaStation NC
and enabling the GNU/Linux
OS on it.
The intended audience of this document is anyone who has an interest
in enabling Linux on the Sun
JavaStations. The document structure is laid out to
serve as either a top-to-bottom read for a newcomer, or as quick
reference on a single topic for advanced users. Pointers
to sample files submitted by users are included for
extremely hurried readers.
The author of this document is Robert Dubinski
rsd@dubinski-family.org. Robert is the former
computer technician and UNIX systems administrator for
Marquette University's
Math, Statistics and Computer
Science Department, where he had
125 JavaStations running
Linux. These machines were
all configured using the information, techniques and files
presented in this document.
In early 1999, Eric Brower ebrower@usa.net wrote the
first informal HOWTO for the JavaStation. Parts
of this document are inspired by his work, and all unique information
presented there have since been merged into this document. Eric's
original mini-HOWTO is saved for posterity at:
http://dubinski-family.org/~jshowto/Files/texts/eric_brower_js_howto_19980218.txt
This HOWTO also aims to serve as a member document of the Linux Documentation
Project. The LDP can be reached at:
http://www.linuxdoc.org
Acknowledgments
Enabling Linux on the JavaStations
, and allowing this HOWTO to come to be would never have
been possible without the fine work of the following people:
Pete Zaitcev zaitcev@yahoo.com
(Primary JavaStation kernel mod author)
Eric Brower ebrower@usa.net
(XFree mods and author of the original
embedded-build HOWTO)
Varol Kaptan varol@ulakbim.gov.tr
(made available his Krups images and patches.
Backported kernel support to 2.2.x series)
David Miller davem@redhat.com
(the original Linux/SPARC kernel porter)
The Linux/SPARC kernel porters and mailing list
The thousands of contributors to the Linux kernel
The HOWTO author wishes to give a second thank-you to Pete
and Eric for their work:
Robert Dubinski, March 2000
Pete got me going with Linux on the
JavaStation in December 1998, has
been the main kernel programmer adding in support for the
JavaStation line, and despite his busy
work schedule was nice enough to find time to answer all my email
queries for help over the last 15 months.
Eric worked on bringing X support to the
JavaStation when it had none.
He had been working on a dedicated server for the
JavaStation in early 1999, and kept me informed of
his progress. In mid-1999, he switched tactics and sent a working
framebuffer example to test out. He also wrote the first comprehensive
mini-HOWTO for the JavaStations,
answered my email questions, and got me interested in the embedded
solution which I employ here at Marquette.
Thank-you Pete and Eric!
History
1.30
31 Oct 2001
Many major changes: restructured for better layout,
new chapters added, updated files and file pointers,
new master distribution location, source broken into
parts, new sample files, md5sums on all sample files,
overall update and proofread of materials. Thank-you
very much to Simon Kuhn for donating an old Sun4 to
enable more sample files be made. Thank-you also to
Nate Carlson for donating sample kernels (unfortunately
that info was lost during a disk crash...Nate, please
contact me.). If anyone contributed items between
May 31 and Oct 31 and it does not show up in this
revision, please resubmit it.
1.25
30 Oct 2001
This is called the "@#!$?" release. It is
called such because there were some small-mid
size changes to the document which were lost
in a disk failure, prior to me re-uploading to
the LDP site. To give you an idea of how bad
the situation was, the last version I had on
backup was in Docbook SGML, while I had switched
to Docbook XML many months prior. Simply put,
any contributed changes or email contacts I had
with contributors were lost, and are hopefully on
their way back in with this release. If you
contributed something, and it disappeared, please
contact me immediately, and it'll get back in. --RSD
1.22
31 May 2001
Changed file links, some sample file formats,
and clarified info relating to the sample files,
following requests on the sparclinux mailing list.
1.20
08 May 2001
Information Refresh up to the current date,
and change to GNU Free Documentation License 1.1
1.15
01 May 2001
Migrate source to DocBook XML 4.12
1.13
02 Feb 2001
Minimal Bugfixes
1.12
29 Dec 2000
Additional info on the "Fox" model
1.11
23 Nov 2000
Krups truecolor blurb, removed one acknowlegement per email request
1.1
15 Nov 2000
Numerous updates and additions
revisions
1.05
16 Jun 2000
Requested Format Changes and Fixes
1.04
13 Jun 2000
Suggested Fixes and Added Requests
1.03
04 May 2000
Minor Fixes, Requests
1.02
28 Apr 2000
Small fixes.
1.01
25 Apr 2000
"Brown Paper Bag" Revision.
1.0
24 Apr 2000
First submission to the LDP.
0.9
18 Apr 2000
Continued reorganization and final merges.
0.7
15 Apr 2000
Migration from LinuxDoc DTD to Docbook DTD.
0.71
14 Apr 2000
Received word doc was forwarded inside Sun.
0.7
14 Apr 2000
Linked on Metabyte Website.
0.6
9 Apr 2000
First semi-public release.
0.4
24 Mar 2000
First move to comprehensive HOWTO.
0.2
15 Oct 1999
More notes collected and merged.
0.1
24 Jun 1999
Initial scraps put together.
Document Copyright and Licenses
Copyright (c) 1999-2001 Robert S. Dubinski.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1
or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
with the Invariant Sections being: "Why JavaStations are No Longer
Produced", with one Front-Cover Text: "Linux on JavaStation HOWTO",
and with one Back-Cover Text: "This document was written
by Robert S. Dubinski in the hope that more people can put
their JavaStation hardware to good use. Thank-you to the
Linux kernel hackers who made this happen, and thank-you to
Sun for a rock-solid piece of hardware." A copy of the
license is included in the section entitled
"GNU Free Documentation License".
The document author makes no warranties that all
the information presented here is completely accurate, and cannot be
held liable to any loss you experience as a result of the information
you use from here.
Best efforts have been made to ensure everything included is accurate as
of the publication date listed at the beginning of this document, but
there is always a possibility something may be wrong. In this case,
doublecheck with alternative sources first before considering implementing
anything at a production-level. If you find something wrong, drop the author
a line at rsd@dubinski-family.org or send a patch to the
document source, and corrections will be made immediately.
This document is an official member document of
the Linux Documentation Project.
Location of the Latest Version and Source
The latest online version of this document can be found at:
http://dubinski-family.org/~jshowto
.
The pre-processed XML source to this document, written
to the Docbook DTD, version 4.1.2, is available from:
http://dubinski-family.org/~jshowto/doc/src/
The pre-processed XML source to the GNU Free Documentation
License, written to the Docbook DTD, and which this
document is licensed under, is available from:
http://dubinski-family.org/~jshowto/doc/src/gfdl.xml
Copies of this document are also available from the Linux Documentation
Project at: http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/JavaStation-HOWTO.
This project used to be available at the URL
'http://javastation-howto.homeip.net'. In Spring 2001, homeip.net
discontinued their free service and moved to a fee based scheme.
Given the hundreds of mirrors of LDP documents, I do not find
the fees justifiable. I have changed all references in this document back to
my home server. Between my server's address,
http://dubinski-family.org/~jshowto,
the LDP website, and its hundreds of mirrors, you should be able to always
find the JavaStation-HOWTO. If this is not the case, email me immediately
at either rsd@dubinski-family.org or
dubinski@mscs.mu.edu.
Reporting Bugs Found In or Additions to the HOWTO
Any problems or concerns about the HOWTO should be reported via email
to the author, Robert Dubinski, at rsd@dubinski-family.org.
Do NOT send document bug reports to the
SparcLinux mailing list, the debian-sparc mailing list, or the Linux
Documentation Project. The folks on there really do not care about my
typos or server misconfigurations, so please don't trouble them.
TODO List for this HOWTO
As NetBSD now supports JavaStations as well, it would be good
to talk about support and sample files for it too.