I pulled a Sun Microsystems Ultra5 machine out of the e-waste some time ago, and have been running various versions of debian sparc or Ubuntu on it for the last few years. The final version was debian Wheezy, the current old old stable.
However, since there is no further work on the debian old old stable, and as there was no working https support in any browser, it was time to upgrade to a more modern release. But, for sparc processors I couldn’t find anything suitable. Solaris 10 was last upgraded in 2013. A path was illuminated when I read this email from John Paul from June 2016, asking the 82 remaining users of debian sparc distribution to migrate to the Sparc64 port. I guess I was one of those last 82 hold outs. And that was 2 years ago. So, Sparc64 became the target port.
Hardware
The Ultra5 I pulled from the e-waste has been improved over the years, and it is now no longer a machine that could have be purchased from Sun. I’ve added 1GB of 50ns RAM, by cutting (hacking in the literal sense) the 2nd hard drive carrier to make space, and have upgraded the CPU to 440MHz, which was only supported in the Ultra10.
I disconnected the jet engine cooling fan, and replaced it with a quiet slow fan sitting on top of the CPU heat sink, and replaced the hard drive by a 64GB PATA SSD.
I’ve also added a PGX64 video card and a USB card to enable modern devices to be supported.
My final hack was to convert the NVRAM to use a VERY LARGE battery. The NVRAM is used to store the MAC address, and other important system configurations. The standard chip has about a 2 year lifetime, if the machine is mainly turned off. The new Lithium Ion CR123A battery should last about 150 years.
Sparc64
Following a number of false starts, the upgrade to Sparc64 went very easily. The April 4th netinstall ISO is good, and can be used as a reference. Of course newer ISOs will be regularly provided, but at least I’m sure that a working machine can be built from the Internet Archive April 4th snapshot. From the OpenBoot command line.
> boot cdrom expert libata.dma=0
The instructions for the upgrade are very standard debian, using the netinstall ISO. The only special instruction is to enter the archive mirror details.
* when prompted to enter mirror data, use the following:
- mirror: http://ftp.ports.debian.org
- directory: /debian-ports/
The installer automatically realises that the hard disk controller is incapable of DMA and configures it to PIO4 mode. Later, the radeon modesetting can be prevented by adding an options line to the local.conf file.
At this point you should have a working Sparc64 installation.
Using the PGX64
The PGX64 has some additional memory, which allows higher screen resolutions than the inbuilt PGX24 graphics. But, unfortunately, it is no faster than standard.
In order to get it to work without conflict, it is necessary to disable to inbuilt PGX24 device, located on PCI Bus B location 2, by configuring the pcib-probe-list.
Building a Desktop
Getting the Ultra5 to be a desktop machine again requires a working X11 graphics adapter. The PGX64 (and the inbuilt PGX24) graphics use the ATI Rage chip, supported by the mach64 driver.
> sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-mach64
Unfortunately, sometime around 2013, the mach64 driver support disappeared. Around the time that the security aspects of Linux kernel were tightened.
Loading the mach64 driver, which is still supported on Sparc64, produces an error when loading.
From /var/log/Xorg.0.log, the driver is unable to map its mmio aperture.
[ 84.251] (II) MACH64(0): Creating default Display subsection in Screen section "Default Screen Section" for depth/fbbpp 24/32 [ 84.251] (==) MACH64(0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32 [ 84.252] (==) MACH64(0): Using XAA acceleration architecture [ 84.252] (EE) Unable to map mmio aperture. Invalid argument (22) [ 84.252] (WW) MACH64: Mach64 in slot 2:1:0 could not be detected! [ 84.252] (II) UnloadModule: "mach64" [ 84.253] (EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration. Fatal server error: [ 84.253] (EE) no screens found(EE)
The only options are to rebuild a kernel with the security disabled, or to find another method of getting a working display driver.
Fortunately, it is possible to use the old framebuffer method for driving the ATI Rage graphics chip. A xorg.conf needs to built, to direct the xserver to load the fbdev driver.
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Xorg Ultra5"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "S24B420B"
VendorName "Samsung"
ModelName "Samsung S24B420B"
HorizSync 30 - 81
VertRefresh 56 - 63
DisplaySize 518 324
Option "DPMS" "true"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "PGX64"
Driver "fbdev"
# Driver "mach64"
Card "ATI Rage Pro - Sun PGX64"
# Option "DMAMode" "sync"
# Option "ForcePCIMode" "true"
# Option "BufferSize" "8"
# Option "ExaNoComposite" "true"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "PGX64"
Monitor "S24B420B"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1920x1200" "1920x1080" "1600x900" "1600x1200" "1440x900" "1280x1024"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1440x900" "1280x1024"
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
EndSection
Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection
This above xorg.conf gets the required outcome. A listing from Xorg.0.log below.
[ 704.327] (II) LoadModule: "fbdev" [ 704.328] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/fbdev_drv.so [ 704.329] (II) Module fbdev: vendor="X.Org Foundation" [ 704.329] compiled for 1.19.0, module version = 0.4.4 [ 704.329] Module class: X.Org Video Driver [ 704.329] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 23.0 [ 704.329] (II) FBDEV: driver for framebuffer: fbdev [ 704.330] (II) Loading sub module "fbdevhw" [ 704.330] (II) LoadModule: "fbdevhw" [ 704.332] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libfbdevhw.so [ 704.333] (II) Module fbdevhw: vendor="X.Org Foundation" [ 704.333] compiled for 1.19.6, module version = 0.0.2 [ 704.333] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 23.0 [ 704.335] (**) FBDEV(0): claimed PCI slot 2@0:1:0 [ 704.335] (II) FBDEV(0): using default device [ 704.336] (**) FBDEV(0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32 [ 704.336] (==) FBDEV(0): RGB weight 888 [ 704.336] (==) FBDEV(0): Default visual is TrueColor [ 704.336] (==) FBDEV(0): Using gamma correction (1.0, 1.0, 1.0) [ 704.337] (II) FBDEV(0): hardware: ATY Mach64 (video memory: 8176kB) [ 704.337] (II) FBDEV(0): checking modes against framebuffer device... [ 704.337] (II) FBDEV(0): mode "1440x900" ok [ 704.337] (II) FBDEV(0): mode "1280x1024" ok [ 704.337] (II) FBDEV(0): checking modes against monitor... [ 704.338] (--) FBDEV(0): Virtual size is 1440x1024 (pitch 1440) [ 704.338] (**) FBDEV(0): Default mode "1440x900": 106.5 MHz (scaled from 0.0 MHz), 55.9 kHz, 59.9 Hz [ 704.338] (II) FBDEV(0): Modeline "1440x900"x0.0 106.50 1440 1520 1672 1904 900 903 909 934 -hsync +vsync (55.9 kHz d) [ 704.338] (**) FBDEV(0): Default mode "1280x1024": 108.0 MHz (scaled from 0.0 MHz), 64.0 kHz, 60.0 Hz [ 704.338] (II) FBDEV(0): Modeline "1280x1024"x0.0 108.00 1280 1328 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 +hsync +vsync (64.0 kHz d) [ 704.338] (**) FBDEV(0): Display dimensions: (518, 324) mm [ 704.339] (**) FBDEV(0): DPI set to (70, 80) [ 704.339] (II) Loading sub module "fb" [ 704.339] (II) LoadModule: "fb" [ 704.340] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libfb.so [ 704.341] (II) Module fb: vendor="X.Org Foundation" [ 704.341] compiled for 1.19.6, module version = 1.0.0 [ 704.342] ABI class: X.Org ANSI C Emulation, version 0.4 [ 704.342] (**) FBDEV(0): using shadow framebuffer [ 704.342] (II) Loading sub module "shadow" [ 704.342] (II) LoadModule: "shadow" [ 704.343] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libshadow.so [ 704.344] (II) Module shadow: vendor="X.Org Foundation" [ 704.345] compiled for 1.19.6, module version = 1.1.0 [ 704.345] ABI class: X.Org ANSI C Emulation, version 0.4 [ 704.345] (==) Depth 24 pixmap format is 32 bpp [ 704.392] (==) FBDEV(0): Backing store enabled [ 704.396] (**) FBDEV(0): DPMS enabled
That is all that is required to get the desktop working.
Experimenting with both xfce and lxde, the lxde desktop is clearly faster. But, unfortunately neither desktop is particularly workable as the framebuffer display driver is quite slow. Responsiveness compared to debian Wheezy, which used the mach64 accelerated driver, is poor.
Next Steps
Just purchased an old Sun XVR-100 PCI adapter to give it a go. The Sun XVR-100 is an ATI Radeon 7000 64 MByte board that contains a SUN ROM to allow it to be recognised by OpenBoot, and to work in the Sun environment.
OpenBoot show-devs
After configuring the OpenBoot to boot with the XVR-100 as the default screen and, to avoid conflicts, disabling the internal PGX graphics PCI interface, we are welcomed by the following boot screen.
Ultra5 – OpenBoot with XVR-100
So it is looking good! But unfortunately, the radeon driver and radeonfb drivers are not working properly. The first sign of trouble is early in dmesg when BAR locations can’t be allocated.
And then again later in the boot sequence the radeonfb driver complains that it can’t map the XVR-100 ROM and being unable to claim BAR 6 to assign a bridge window.
And this leads to the xorg xserver loading the radeon driver but then being unable to properly address the XVR-100, so it bails out leaving us with no X screen. Luckily, the console is still working.
To be continued.
Gone Bush 
consider in the future an IDE DOM of some manner instead, in the amount of 128MB or so for boot. the onboard IDE controller in the 5/10 is very slow with no DMA, and that will have a negative impact on performance. the way I got around this in my 10 was the addition of that IDE DOM for /boot and putting the rest of / on a SATA hard drive with a Silicon Image 3112 card with a Mac BIOS flashed to it. (Adaptec 1208SA I think it is? any Mac BIOS’d silicon image card made of a 3112 should work.) SATA SSDs won’t work with these though, something with the command set between the card and the drive that doesn’t make it work properly… same goes with optical drives on that card. Likewise a proper IDE card should also work as well, you just can’t boot from it. so again, the IDE DOM for booting and put the PATA SSD on an IDE card someplace that the machine likes and will use in Linux. thus the overhead the onboard controller makes is absolutely minimal.
Hi,
thanks for this article .. did you ever sort out the X config with the XVR-100 and a recent Linux? I wanted to give Debian 10 a try on my Blade 150 with the XVR-100.
Cheers
Iggi
Hi Iggi,
sorry, no. Unfortunately I couldn’t get the XVR-100 to work. I still have it but I can’t make it do more than the POST screen at boot.
Also, the MACH64 drivers for the PGX-64 or the standard PGX-24 don’t work anymore either, so the only solution is frame buffer and that is unworkably slow on 64bit.
Sadly, I think almost no-one uses these machines with graphics these days so I don’t live in hope that either option will be fixed.
Do post comment or email if you learn more, please.
Phillip
Hi Philipp,
well we even have been trying to find someone (well sponsor as there are several people interested in a “native” mach64/radeon driver but it looks like no one has the time to so.
I updated now my Ultra 10 to Debian 11 tried with your config to get my PGX24 up and running but looks like I am missing something as it fails:
X.Org X Server 1.20.11
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
[ 1506.894] Build Operating System: linux Debian
[ 1506.897] Current Operating System: Linux ultra10 5.14.0-1-sparc64 #1 Debian 5.14.6-2 (2021-09-19) sparc64
[ 1506.897] Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinux-5.14.0-1-sparc64 root=UUID=a0da3486-7dae-4aba-8dfe-9c82b46c307c ro quiet
[ 1506.904] Build Date: 13 April 2021 04:07:31PM
[ 1506.907] xorg-server 2:1.20.11-1 (https://www.debian.org/support)
[ 1506.910] Current version of pixman: 0.40.0
[ 1506.916] Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
to make sure that you have the latest version.
[ 1506.916] Markers: (–) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
(++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
[ 1506.930] (==) Log file: “/var/log/Xorg.0.log”, Time: Thu Sep 23 20:43:14 2021
[ 1506.934] (==) Using system config directory “/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d”
[ 1506.937] (==) No Layout section. Using the first Screen section.
[ 1506.937] (==) No screen section available. Using defaults.
[ 1506.937] (**) |–>Screen “Default Screen Section” (0)
[ 1506.937] (**) | |–>Monitor “”
[ 1506.943] (==) No monitor specified for screen “Default Screen Section”.
Using a default monitor configuration.
[ 1506.943] (==) Automatically adding devices
[ 1506.943] (==) Automatically enabling devices
[ 1506.943] (==) Automatically adding GPU devices
[ 1506.944] (==) Max clients allowed: 256, resource mask: 0x1fffff
[ 1506.944] (WW) The directory “/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic” does not exist.
[ 1506.944] Entry deleted from font path.
[ 1506.945] (==) FontPath set to:
/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc,
/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled,
/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled,
/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1,
/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi,
/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi,
built-ins
[ 1506.945] (==) ModulePath set to “/usr/lib/xorg/modules”
[ 1506.945] (II) The server relies on udev to provide the list of input devices.
If no devices become available, reconfigure udev or disable AutoAddDevices.
[ 1506.945] (II) Loader magic: 0x1000034ac30
[ 1506.945] (II) Module ABI versions:
[ 1506.945] X.Org ANSI C Emulation: 0.4
[ 1506.945] X.Org Video Driver: 24.1
[ 1506.945] X.Org XInput driver : 24.1
[ 1506.945] X.Org Server Extension : 10.0
[ 1506.954] (++) using VT number 1
[ 1506.974] (II) systemd-logind: took control of session /org/freedesktop/login1/session/_31
[ 1506.988] (–) PCI:*(1@0:2:0) 1002:4750:0000:0000 rev 92, Mem @ 0xe1000000/16777216, 0xe2000000/4096
[ 1506.994] (II) LoadModule: “glx”
[ 1506.996] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so
[ 1507.015] (II) Module glx: vendor=”X.Org Foundation”
[ 1507.015] compiled for 1.20.11, module version = 1.0.0
[ 1507.015] ABI class: X.Org Server Extension, version 10.0
[ 1507.017] (==) Matched ati as autoconfigured driver 0
[ 1507.017] (==) Matched modesetting as autoconfigured driver 1
[ 1507.018] (==) Matched fbdev as autoconfigured driver 2
[ 1507.018] (==) Matched sunffb as autoconfigured driver 3
[ 1507.018] (==) Assigned the driver to the xf86ConfigLayout
[ 1507.018] (II) LoadModule: “ati”
[ 1507.020] (WW) Warning, couldn’t open module ati
[ 1507.020] (EE) Failed to load module “ati” (module does not exist, 0)
[ 1507.020] (II) LoadModule: “modesetting”
[ 1507.022] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/modesetting_drv.so
[ 1507.023] (II) Module modesetting: vendor=”X.Org Foundation”
[ 1507.023] compiled for 1.20.11, module version = 1.20.11
[ 1507.023] Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[ 1507.024] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 24.1
[ 1507.024] (II) LoadModule: “fbdev”
[ 1507.025] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/fbdev_drv.so
[ 1507.026] (II) Module fbdev: vendor=”X.Org Foundation”
[ 1507.026] compiled for 1.20.0, module version = 0.5.0
[ 1507.026] Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[ 1507.026] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 24.0
[ 1507.026] (II) LoadModule: “sunffb”
[ 1507.028] (WW) Warning, couldn’t open module sunffb
[ 1507.029] (EE) Failed to load module “sunffb” (module does not exist, 0)
[ 1507.029] (II) modesetting: Driver for Modesetting Kernel Drivers: kms
[ 1507.029] (II) FBDEV: driver for framebuffer: fbdev
[ 1507.030] (EE) open /dev/dri/card0: No such file or directory
[ 1507.030] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for modesetting
[ 1507.030] (EE) open /dev/dri/card0: No such file or directory
[ 1507.030] (II) Loading sub module “fbdevhw”
[ 1507.031] (II) LoadModule: “fbdevhw”
[ 1507.032] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libfbdevhw.so
[ 1507.033] (II) Module fbdevhw: vendor=”X.Org Foundation”
[ 1507.033] compiled for 1.20.11, module version = 0.0.2
[ 1507.033] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 24.1
[ 1507.035] (**) FBDEV(1): claimed PCI slot 1@0:2:0
[ 1507.035] (II) FBDEV(1): using default device
[ 1507.035] (EE) Screen 0 deleted because of no matching config section.
[ 1507.036] (II) UnloadModule: “modesetting”
[ 1507.036] (II) FBDEV(0): Console is 8bpp, defaulting to 32bpp
[ 1507.036] (II) FBDEV(0): Creating default Display subsection in Screen section
“Default Screen Section” for depth/fbbpp 24/32
[ 1507.037] (==) FBDEV(0): Depth 24, (==) framebuffer bpp 32
[ 1507.037] (==) FBDEV(0): RGB weight 888
[ 1507.037] (==) FBDEV(0): Default visual is TrueColor
[ 1507.037] (==) FBDEV(0): Using gamma correction (1.0, 1.0, 1.0)
[ 1507.037] (II) FBDEV(0): hardware: ATY Mach64 (video memory: 4088kB)
[ 1507.037] (II) FBDEV(0): checking modes against framebuffer device…
[ 1507.038] (II) FBDEV(0): checking modes against monitor…
[ 1507.038] (II) FBDEV(0): Virtual size is 1280×1024 (pitch 1280)
[ 1507.038] (**) FBDEV(0): Built-in mode “current”: 107.2 MHz, 63.5 kHz, 59.6 Hz
[ 1507.038] (II) FBDEV(0): Modeline “current”x0.0 107.16 1280 1346 1458 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 +hsync -vsync -csync (63.5 kHz b)
[ 1507.038] (==) FBDEV(0): DPI set to (96, 96)
[ 1507.038] (II) Loading sub module “fb”
[ 1507.039] (II) LoadModule: “fb”
[ 1507.039] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libfb.so
[ 1507.041] (II) Module fb: vendor=”X.Org Foundation”
[ 1507.041] compiled for 1.20.11, module version = 1.0.0
[ 1507.041] ABI class: X.Org ANSI C Emulation, version 0.4
[ 1507.041] (**) FBDEV(0): using shadow framebuffer
[ 1507.041] (II) Loading sub module “shadow”
[ 1507.041] (II) LoadModule: “shadow”
[ 1507.043] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libshadow.so
[ 1507.044] (II) Module shadow: vendor=”X.Org Foundation”
[ 1507.044] compiled for 1.20.11, module version = 1.1.0
[ 1507.044] ABI class: X.Org ANSI C Emulation, version 0.4
[ 1507.045] (EE) FBDEV(0): FBIOPUT_VSCREENINFO: Invalid argument
[ 1507.045] (EE) FBDEV(0): mode initialization failed
[ 1507.045] (EE)
Fatal server error:
[ 1507.046] (EE) AddScreen/ScreenInit failed for driver 0
[ 1507.046] (EE)
[ 1507.046] (EE)
Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support
at http://wiki.x.org
for help.
[ 1507.046] (EE) Please also check the log file at “/var/log/Xorg.0.log” for additional information.
[ 1507.047] (EE)
[ 1507.115] (EE) Server terminated with error (1). Closing log file.
had the mach64 and fb xservers installed.
Let’s hope that maybe someone will find the motivation to help the still existing community of Sun 4u users.
Cheers
Iggi