If you do not have floppy drive, and your PROM is less than version 2, you will need to do a network boot. This is fairly easy to do, but you will need a rarp entry on a server on your local network to tell the target SPARC what its IP address is. This can be done on a Linux system that has RARP built into the kernel (or inserted as a module), using a command of this form:

rarp -s ip.address.of.sparc hw:address:of:sparc

You also need an ARP entry in most cases; for example:

arp -s ip.address.of.sparc hw:address:of:sparc

Now you need to setup a TFTP server on your local network to serve the kernel to the target SPARC. This should be the same machine that is doing the rarp above. Under Red Hat Linux, this can be done by editing /etc/inetd.conf. You need an entry that looks similar to:

tftp dgram udp wait root /usr/sbin/tcpd in.tftpd /home/tftp

You can now copy the kernels/vmlinux to /home/tftp on your server and create a symbolic link so that the PROM can get the proper file. This symbolic link is conditional based on the IP address and architecture of the target SPARC. You need to make the link be the hex value of your IP address ``dot'' the architecture. For example, to create a symbolic link for flanders.redhat.com, a sun4m machine with IP address 199.183.24.232, you would enter the command:

cd /home/tftp
ln -s vmlinux C7B718E8.SUN4M

At this point you should be able to go to the PROM on your SPARC and type:

boot net nfsroot=nfs.server.IP.address:/path/to/RH/image

and it should get its rarp request from the TFTP server fulfilled and start loading the kernel via TFTP. The kernel should then boot and start the install.

After booting the installation disk you will be greeted by a welcome screen with a single button; press [Enter] to begin the installation.

Now, choose the medium you will be installing from; NFS, Hard Disk or FTP. Installing from hard disk will work if you have an existing partition with an EXT2 filesystem only; installation from UFS is not yet implemented.