This is an image of my SPARCstation IPX after a fresh install of SunOS 4.1.4 and several other additions. It should work on a SPARCstation with the SUN 4c architecture.
Link to SunOS 4.1.4 Disk Image Ready to run
HOW TO USE THIS IMAGE
This was taken off my ZuluZSCI SD-CARD. It was installed from a CD_ROM image and modified for all the stuff below. It should work fine on a SCSI2SD as well if you bit copy it and config the card ahead of time.
ROOT
The only account on the box is root, with no password. Login and you're in!
ROOT SHELL
I compiled tcsh from source and it’s in /usr/local/bin. The root account uses this as its default shell. To change the root shell edit /etc/passwd to the shell of your choice.
TELNET
You can telnet into the box by default after changing the IP address. Many modern machines present themselves as xterm-256color.
This terminal is not in the termcap file as it did not exist when the file was made. You can either just set the terminal by hand to "xterm" or you can modify the termcap file to have the xterm-256color alias.
PATCHED DNS
This image has been patched to use DNS without NIS. This was a non-standard configuration at the time. It was common, however for government agencies and academia to request the DNS without NIS configuration and Sun made the files available to patch the libc shared library with DNS resolver routines. The patched files located in:
/usr/lib/shlib.etc/tmp
The procedure is located here on my website but as I mentioned this has already been done on this image.
Using DNS without NIS on SunOS 4.1.X
NETWORKING SETUP
This image is set up for my home network. To make it work on your network you will need to change some files. The image is set for a static IP. I don’t think DHCP was a thing in 1993.
This image is currently setup at 192.168.7.14 on the 192.168.7.x network. My DNS server on this network is 192.168.7.99, and I have an internal network name of vernon.com. (Note: this is just internal as I don't own that domain). You can delete the lien containing “domain” and it will work fine.
To adapt this to your environment you will need to change the following files:
Change /etc/defaultrouter replacing 192.1168.7.1 with your gateway router
Change /etc/hosts to your desired workstation IP, name and gateway
Change /etc/netmasks changing my IP address to yours
Change /etc/resolv.conf to your nameserver IP and, optionally your search domain
X11R6
This image has both OpenWindows and X11R6 installed. I use X11. To start XWindows type "startx" once logged in as root. The default window manager is twm and its config file is “.twmrc”
GNU UTILITIES and COMPILERS
I built and compiled many common gnu utilties as well as gcc and g++ up to version 2.95.3. These are 99-era compilers but work great. It was a multiday effort to get this compiler suite working. The default sun CC is still on the box and usable but it’s a K&R compiler without prototypes so won’t compile anything new. Just use GCC and gnu make in /usr/local/bin and you’ll be fine.
[ipx2:root:/usr/local/bin] ls
c++ gunzip unprotoize
c++filt gzexe vs
chill gzip zcat
cpp jcf-dump zcmp
g++ jv-scan zdiff
g77 make zforce
gcc patch zgrep
gcj protoize zmore
gcjh sparc-sun-sunos4.1.4-gcc znew
gcov tcshFINALLY, HELP
Finally, if you find this helpful image and you end up compiling more things using it, let me know! I would love to keep adding to the image and re-releasing it.
SunOS 4.1.4 is fast fun operating system that makes these older SPARCstations fairly zippy!
Enjoy!