The Aurora SPARC Linux Project

The Aurora SPARC Linux Project is proud to announce Build 0.31 (Phoenix
Rising) to the world. For the first time, Aurora has a working
installer! Well, mostly working anyways. 

This build is mostly 0.3, with some minor bugfixes and sparc64 isos.

This build is to be considered BETA. Like all the other Aurora builds.
This build comes with an installer for sparc64. sparc32 is coming at a
later point. It also comes with isos for sparc64. If you boot the isos
on a sparc32, it might get you to silo, but it won't boot a kernel.

This release has some known bugs:

- GUI installs on sparc64 machines with Creator video cards will
probably fail. Do a text based or serial install for the time being. Its
a kernel bug.

- SBUS/EBUS probing appears to be hit and miss. On some machines, the
installer was unable to find network cards, and on some it was unable
to find SCSI controllers. If you need to use SCSI in addition to IDE,
use expert, otherwise, the installer should prompt you to select a SCSI
driver. If you need networking during the install, and the card is not
detected, use expert mode and manually select the driver.

- The floppy image (boot64.img) is waaay too big for a floppy disk. Most
UltraSPARCs don't have working floppy drives anyway. Its included mostly
for reference. There is a way to get around this, basically by splitting
the floppy image into "boot64.img" and "initrd64.img", so that its a two
disk process, but again, thats for a later release.

- The tftp image is broken. Don't use it at this point.

- There are still sections of the installer, especially Text and Serial
that refer to Red Hat, Inc. Aurora is NOT a product of Red Hat, Inc.
This will be cleaned up in a later release.

- UltraSPARCs don't like ISOs burned at high speeds. I had the most
success burning at 12X or lower. Your mileage may vary. If you are
getting screens full of DMA timeout messages, try reburning at a lower
speed.

- Some of the language translations may be really really off. If you
catch something mistranslated or wrong, please please please send me a
fix.

- the esp SCSI driver has no license. This is fixed upstream. I just
didn't have time to respin the kernel before LinuxWorld.

Downloads are available at the following locations:

ftp://zenIII.uk.linux.org/pub/distributions/aurora/build-0.31/
ftp://auroralinux.org/pub/aurora/build-0.31/

Wanna be a mirror? Found a bug in the tree? Something
missing/corrupt?    
Email me: tcallawa@redhat.com

Install methods:

Serial (works)
Network (works)
HD (not tested, no idea if it works or not)
Text (works)
Graphical (works on machines without Creator cards)
Floppy (does not work, floppy image too large)
TFTP (does not work)

Thank yous go out to:

Ed Halley, for doing all the art in the installer.
Jeremy Katz, for fixing many many bugs in the installer.
Ingo T. Storm, for hosting and patience.
Robr, for egging me onward.
Jakub Jelinek, for being a bugfixing package building machine.
Dave Miller, for telling me how much I suck. ;)
Uzi for being Uzi.

Everyone on aurora-sparc-devel & aurora-sparc-user.

the Aurora SPARC Project lives at:

http://auroralinux.org

Also, come out and see Aurora @ LinuxWorld Conference and Expo. We'll be
showing off Aurora SPARC Linux in Booth #19, in the .ORG Pavilion. Not
to mention free bumper stickers. Mmm. Free bumper stickers. You know you
want them. ;)

~spot
---
Tom "spot" Callaway <tcallawa@redhat.com> Red Hat Sales Engineer
Sair Linux and GNU Certified Administrator (LCA)
Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE)
GPG: D786 8B22 D9DB 1F8B 4AB7  448E 3C5E 99AD 9305 4260

The words and opinions reflected in this message do not necessarily
reflect those of my employer, Red Hat, and belong solely to me.

"Immature poets borrow, mature poets steal." --- T. S. Eliot