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 <dubinski@mscs.mu.edu>, Computer Technician and UNIX systems administrator for Marquette University's Math, Statistics and Computer Science Department. In the MU MSCS department, 125 JavaStations are currently running Linux, configured using the information, techniques and files presented in this document.

In early 1999, Eric Brower <ebrower@mscs.mu.edu> 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.

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@metabyte.com> (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:

Document Contributors

The following people have contributed to this specific document:

• Pete Zaitcev <zaitcev@metabyte.com> (Proofreading and factual corrections of initial drafts)

• Magdalena Wodzinska <magdalena.wodzinska@marquette.edu> (Proofreading and document layout suggestions)

History of this document

Document Copyright and Licenses

This particular document and its source as a whole is Copyright 1999-2000, Robert Dubinski <dubinski@mscs.mu.edu>. You may mirror or redistribute this document as a whole or in part for either public or commercial purposes provided the following: 1) you do not make any modifications to this work , 2) retain this license information and author copyright section, even when redistributing just a part of this document, and 3) include acknowledgement of where this document as a whole may be obtained . This ensures that any comments written by the document author do not get taken out of context or modified incorrectly, acknowledges the work of the author, allows for inclusion in commercial projects, and points readers to where they may find potentially updated versions of the information presented.

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 <dubinski@mscs.mu.edu> or send me a patch to the document source, and corrections will be made immediately.

In the future, this document may be re-released under the Open Content or other Free Document license, but for now all Open Documentation licenses are currently being investigated by the author. If you have comments into this legal matter, drop the author a line at <dubinski@mscs.mu.edu>. As it stands, the license presented above captures the spirit of the LDP boilerplate license without specifically mentioning it.

This document is a 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://www.mscs.mu.edu/~tech/Linux_on_JS .

The pre-processed SGML source to this document, written to the Docbook DTD, is available from: http://www.mscs.mu.edu/~tech/Linux_on_JS/Files/JavaStation-HOWTO.sgml

Copies of this document are also available from the Linux Documentation Project at: http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/JavaStation-HOWTO.