[parisc-linux] Getting Started...

[van de Werken, Matthew (DEM, PH)]

Hi folks:

I have recently "acquired" a couple of old 735/xxx's, and I wish to run
Linux on these.
I have no experience with these machines whatsoever, my only experience is
with PCs, and Sun and IBM RS/6000 as unix-users (NOT as sysadmin). I have
run Linux on a PC before, so I am not totally alien to sysadmin. Oh, and I'm
an electronics engineer, so I have no problem with writing (average) code or
fiddling with electronics.

Firstly, I have a couple of questions if someone would be so kind as to help
me out:

* These boxes seem to have no indication whether they are 735/125 or 735/99
- how do I find out which they are?

* I don't know how much memory they have, how do I find this out? They have
maybe half of the memory expansion slots filled.

* I have no HIL keyboard or mouse, is there a way to make a HIL-to-PS/2
adapter so I can have a k/b and mouse at the console, or am I better off
using a serial terminal?

* These machines have no graphics output, how can I tell if they're alive?
Serial cable to a terminal (9600-N-1)?

* These machines have only the FDDI(?) optical network. I'm not sure how to
connect these to my ethernet (if at all), or am I better off adding an ISA
or EISA network card to the boxes?

* Can I add an ISA or EISA network card to the boxes, and will it be
recognised? Drivers?

* Has anyone done any work on a boot ROM in place of the "BIOS" (Yes, I know
it's not called a bios, but I can't remember the name off-hand...), so the
serial link isn't needed. That is, is there a way to have some startup code
in the ROM that will immediately point the box to the NFS share where it's
to get its info? What about a boot ROM on a network card? Is this even
possible?

* Can you boot these things straight off the SCSI disk? Is there a bootable
disk image, that would mean the network isn't needed straight away?

* Is there a basic "getting started" guide that I can use in order to boot
and have a bit of a play? What's the minimum I would need to do this?

* I read on the web site that there is no X server for this machine being
developed, is X available at all? That is, if I have an X server on another
machine, and assuming I have some networking setup, can I use remote X apps
(the way X is supposed to be...)?

I have a fast internet link and CD burner at work, so I have no problem
getting whole disk images if I need to.

Thanks in advance for the help, I can't think of any more questions for
now...

Cheers,
Matt van de Werken.