S10U3/SXDE and nVidia 7950GX2

[Asgaroth]

Hi All,

I wonder if anyone has come accross these error's. When I install Solaris Express Developer Edition (Nevada Build 64a x86/x64), the installation proceeds with the X environment. however when it finishes and reboots for the first time, I get the following wraning and the system does not *appear* to proceed with the boot process:

<standard kernel message>
WARNING: terminal emulator: Compatible fb not found.
WARNING: consconfig: terminal emulator failed to initialize.

I dont get the chance to run the nVidia Solaris driver installation binary, because it does not have the option to install in the initial stages of Solaris installs, and SXDE wont boot to the prompt for me to login and install it.

With Solaris 10 Update 3 it's a little different, I get a little firther. The installation proceeds as expected, then the box reboots and the graphical console starts up into the Java Desktop environment. At this point I open a command prompt and run the nVidia driver installation package and the do a "reboot -- -r" for a reconfig reboot. This is where a similar thing happens as with SXDE. The warnings i get are as follows:

<standard kernel message>
WARNING: terminal-emulator: VIS_DEVINIT failed.
WARNING: cons_build_upper_layer; Could not attach frame buffer, error 6

This is where it stays indefinately, I dont get a login prompt at all. In both instances I can do a "Solaris Failsafe" boot and get to the filesystem, but thats it, I'm not too sure what to do from there.

I had a look at the FAQ and the user's guide, but I dont see anything right off the bat that would seem to fix it.

My hardware is as follows:

2 x nVidia 7950GX2's
2 x Opteron 285's
MSI K8N Master2-FAR motherboard
6GB ECC Registered Memory.
4 x 300 SATA HDD's (not NVRAIDed)

Any comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Asgaroth

[tunla]

My friend has the MSI Master2-FAR board with two Nvidia 8800 boards,
but I cant remember the brand name of the graphic boards.
Anyway they are set up in SLI configuration.

We installed Solaris Nevada build 67 on this machine.
the 8800 boards are only supported by the latest driver 100,14.11 so in order
to get anything up and running we needed to set up
/etc/X11/xorg.conf with the Xorg "nv" 2D driver .
Its the 2D driver thats used during the installation.

So I would prepare a floppy or CDROM with a xorg.conf file
which has :

Section "Device"
.
.
Driver "nv"
.
.
EndSection

then boot in failsafe mode and mount the Diskette/CDROM
and copy the prepared xorg.conf file to /a/etc/X11/xorg.conf

If the 2D driver works during install it should work later as well.

the 100.14.11 3D driver works on my friends box
the 3D driver on the SXDE B64a DVD is older so
maybe you just need to upgrade to a 3D driver that supports you hardware.

//Lars