Sun Blade 150 & Ubuntu

Posted on Aug 16, 2006

Update (10/17/06): I have created a static page with more detail for this issue since the post was generating quite a few hits.

Just got Ubuntu 6.06 running on a Sun Blade 150. Besides some RAM related weirdness – I had to remove one of the sticks of RAM to get it to boot and install – it went pretty smoothly. In fact it worked better than the Solaris 10 installation I had tried a couple of days ago. In the end I gave up on Solaris, it just wasn’t worth the hassle, though I will say that I did eventually get it into a semi-working state on the Desktop – it just took too long to get it there.

The Ubuntu server install booted without an issue. I then installed gnome, kde and the X font server – that was when things went wrong. The X Server (Xorg) would start but my monitor (a Dell 1905FP) would tell me that it couldn’t display that video mode. Despite trying every resolution and bit depth I could think of, this behavior persisted. It was then that I came across a post on the Ubuntu forums, it was for a Sun Blade 100 but the PGX64 card (which is ATI Rage based) was the same. The post contained the crucial information needed to remedy the problem, a line had to be added to the Device section of the xorg.conf config:

Option “ReferenceClock” “29.500MHz”

Once that had been added, the X Server came up and displayed without a hitch. Given how hard it was to find the solution, I figured I’d add my entry to try to boost the Google entries Every day I get more and more impressed with Ubuntu. It still has some way to go in terms of Enterprise tools, but for every day use it is starting to come into its own, and that is from someone with an RHCE

Technorati Tags: Sun Blade 150, Ubuntu, Linux, xorg, Sun

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