Sparc - Installing FreeBSD

Installation of FreeBSD on the Sparc architechture is nearly identical to the x86 architecture installation, although booting from media differs somewhat from the x86 install procedures:

The first step is getting your target machine to boot off of your install media. Sun's Sparc machines have a few quirks, the most relevant of which for you right now is Open Boot Firmware (off-site link to sun.com's info on Open Boot parameters).

Boot from the console (or console via terminal,) and during boot-up, hit the STOP button and the letter "a" on the keyboard. If this does not halt the POST and bootup, and there is already a version of unix on the machine (e.g., Solaris,) then you can get to the firmware prompt by executing

  init 0

as root.

This will drop you to the OK prompt. This is the Open Firmware prompt, which is a close cousin of the Mac OS X Open Firmware (off-site link). It may help to think of it as a BIOS-commandline.

The OK prompt may be displayed thus:

  OK 

or

  OK> 

this can be one of the other depending on which version of the Open Firmware the machine is running.

If you're running on a machine with multiple processors, you may see

  OK {0} 

or

  OK {1}

this will only be seen on machines with multiple processors and the number within the parenthesis is to let you know which processor you're currently running on.

At the OK> prompt, type in "boot cdrom" (if you've got a bootable cdrom for the sparc arch in the cd drive of the machine) or "boot net" if you're trying to do a net install from a network server. From here on in, the install should be nearly identical to an x86 install.