epyon (Toshiba Satellite Pro 4600)
Table of Contents
Summary
I intend to run older Solaris (7, 8, maybe 9) on this machine. I wanted an older PIII Sony VAIO, but in looking for machines with an Intel NIC I came across this model. The price was right, and the only limitations I considered were being stuck with 1024x768 resolution.
Notes
- BIOS battery is 2x NiMH coin cells in flat configuration. Requires disassembling and separating case halves to access.
Hardware
| Make | Toshiba |
| Year | 2001 |
| Model | Satellite Pro 4600 |
| Power Supply | 15V DC |
| Processor | Intel Pentium III Mobile - 900 MHz |
| Memory | 384MB SDRAM |
| Ports | DB-9 Serial |
| Parallel | |
| VGA | |
| PS/2 mouse/keyboard | |
| Port Replicator Bus | |
| Infrared | |
| 2x USB A 1.1 | |
| Composite Video | |
| RJ-11 Modem | |
| RJ-45 LAN | |
| 3.5mm Headphone | |
| 3.5mm Microphone | |
| 2x PC Card | |
| Graphics | Trident Cyber Blade XP |
| Storage | 16GB mSATA with JM20330 PATA Bridge |
| 8x DVD-ROM SD-C2402 | |
| 3.5" Floppy Drive | |
| Display | 15" 1024x768 LCD |
| Int. Peripherals | Intel Pro 100 VE |
| Toshiba Soft Modem AMR | |
| SMC IrCC - Fast Infrared | |
| Yamaha YMF743 (AKM4543) Audio | |
| Dimensions | |
| Length/Depth | 27.4 cm |
| Width | 32.8 cm |
| Height/Thickness | 4.9 cm |
| Weight | 3.25 kg (7 lbs 3 oz) |
Software
| Operating System | |
| Unique applications |
Log
A Solaris 7 Intel install (first try)
I got this Satellite Pro 4600 and it's a massive machine. The main positive is this thing has every feature of my docked 7200ct built right in.
I used a copy of Solaris 7 from the Internet Archive. This provides an Intel ISO, and a device assistant floppy image. Booting from the floppy eventually lets you select the optical drive to load the Solaris kernel, and then you can get on with the install. I followed the general install hints on the Solaris x86 laptop list which also has an entry for the Satellite 4600.
The installer didn't seem to recognize my 16GB mSATA SSD properly, but I went ahead with just 8GB of space for now. After first boot I tried to follow the information about configuring an iprb driver for the built-in NIC, but despite trying different PCI IDs I saw in dmesg the driver would always report "failed to attach".
I did some searching on Xsun+Xfree86 modules, but I'm currently left confused. It's not clear whether the Xfree modules supplement the Sun X server, or if it's expected to use Xfree86 as a replacement X implementation. Unfortunately the Sun site that hosted things is since gone, and the wayback archive is a bit sparse without being able to access the linked downloads. (See my next entry for resolution)
I'm also considering dropping Solaris 7 on this machine since so much web info and support seems focused on Solaris 8/9 releases. Perhaps I can find a more suitable machine; Pentium era would be nice.
A Solaris 8 Install (getting proper X drivers)
I went for a Solaris 8 install. It had no trouble dealing with the full 16GB SSD unlike Solaris 7. Getting a decent X experience was challenging. Here's how the install went.
I used the Solaris 8 x86 CD images from WinWorld. Generally I tried to follow the install hints at the Solaris Laptop list (x86). I booted from the install CD (ignorant of the hint I just mentioned) and it did some weirdness with creating a bootable swap partition??? After a reboot, the install continued.
Another good source is the Solaris x86 FAQ. It's probably worth going through first if you're unfamiliar with Solaris' peculiarities.
Network config
I needed to transfer some files after the install and a network connection seemed like the best route. The iprb driver works for the Intel NIC, but it has a different PCI ID. I knew it was an Intel device, but didn't know the exact ID so I did some googling with the output of prtconf|grep 8086 until I found the ID associated with the NIC. You can add a driver alias like:
add_drv -i "pci8086:3013" iprb
The quotes are important. Note that the Solaris Laptop x86 page doesn't include them, but this caused the driver to not attach and some errors during boot.
Then I created a /etc/hostname.iprb0 with a static IP in it. Normally Solaris expects a hostname in there and it can then resolve it from /etc/hosts, but this gets it working for now. This should be enough to get it running on boot. You can also manually configure and bring up the card like so (not sure if the initial plumb is necessary):
ifconfig iprb0 plumb ifconfig iprb0 plumb up ifconfig iprb0 192.168.1.55 netmask + 255.255.255.0
To actually transfer the files I just stood up a Python Twisted FTP server with the FTP server example. It makes it easy to stand up a quick FTP server without much config, change the port to something >1024 if you're running as a normal user.
On the client side login in as anonymous, no password. Don't forget to switch into binary mode before commanding your client to get the files or you'll get unusable files.
X drivers
I managed to hunt down the "Solaris XFree86 Video Drivers and Porting Kit" from archive.org. You can find it from this wayback machine link for XFree86 4.3.0 or this one based on XFree86 4.4.0. It's important to distinguish these from the separate XFree86 system for Solaris. These packages enable the use of XFree86 drivers with the built-in Solaris X implementation.
Patches
Before X can be reconfigured I also had to install the patches mentioned on those pages. I found the Recommended patch cluster includes them both so I took the opportunity to install it all. I got mine from the sunet mirror since Oracle are jerks, and Sun weren't much better if the wayback archive is indicative.
From there I grabbed the clusters/8_x86_Recommended.zip. There are installation instructions in the same filename with .README extension. I unzipped the file, went single-user, and ran the cluster_install script. It's quite slow, and a dozen or so patches failed.
X configuration
Now I ran kdmconfig and the correct options were there. My Trident XP wasn't mentioned, but the general Trident driver works. I stuck with the monitor that Solaris detected before, and set the resolution to 1024x768 with millions of colors. The configuration tool lets you test your choice before going ahead so you don't end up in a pickle. Everything went well and I had a nice functional CDE desktop to start working in.
Things that remain are:
- Sound drivers
- DHCP network configuration
- This Solaris 8 FAQ has a good overview of DHCP intricacies.
- NIC seems to only be negotiating 10Mbit