Problem: the machines have an Adaptec SCSI controller AIC7902 (?), which needs the aic79xx driver, which is not supported by the woody boot floppies/cdrom.
Solution: install woody on a different computer using the 2.4 kernel installer (type 'bf24' at the boot prompt of the cdrom/floppy). Don't upgrade the kernel on this other computer - keep it at 2.4.18-bf2.4.
Plan of attack: compile the aic79xx.o (and, while we're at it, e1000.o for the network card in the Sun's) against the bf2.4 kernel so we can put the modules on a floppy and give them to the debian installer.
apt-get install kernel-source-2.4.18 kernel-headers-2.4.18-bf2.4 cd /usr/src
Download the aic79xx module source to here. I used the version obtainable here (at the time it was aic79xx-1.3.10-source.tar.gz).
tar xjf kernel-source-2.4.18.tar.bz2 cd kernel-source-2.4.18 # copy the .config which is already setup for the bf24 kernel: cp ../kernel-headers-2.4.18-bf2.4/.config . cd drivers mv scsi/aic7xxx scsi/aic7xxx.old # untar the aic79xx source code into the source tree (should re-create # drivers/scsi/aic7xxx: tar xzf ../../aic79xx-1.3.10-source.tar.gz # or whatever your version is called cd .. make clean make menuconfig-> select aic79xx as a Module
In .config, set CONFIG_AIC79XX_CMDS_PER_DEVICE to 32 and disable CONFIG_AIC79XX_ENABLE_RD_STRM. (Sun suggest this.)
make depTo just make the module we want:
make SUBDIRS=drivers/scsi/aic7xxx modulesThis should make drivers/scsi/aic7xxx/aic79xx.o. Copy this file onto a floppy and put it in a directory on the floppy called 'boot'.
If you want to get the ethernet card working too, download the e1000 driver from Intel's website (e1000-5.1.13 or similar), untar, cd to the src directory in there, 'make e1000.o'. Then copy the resulting e1000.o to the boot directory on the floppy.
Now when you boot the Debian installer on the Sun, you can choose 'preload essential modules from floppy', and it should load them for you!
To save you the trouble of doing all this - here are the modules I compiled in this way. They should work with the woody install floppy/cdrom as long as you remember to choose 'bf24' at the boot prompt.
Seb Wills, saw27@mrao.cam.ac.uk 16 Sept. 2003
Update (7 Nov 2003): Brad Tilley writes: I was having a difficult time getting Debian 3.0r1 installed on a new HP xw4100 scsi based workstation. Your instructions for the Sun Fire V60 worked *perfectly* for this machine as well.