For ages now I’ve been trying to installing SunOS 4.1.4 (the last pure BSD-based version), but haven’t had any luck. I’ve tried my CD on three different machines (a SPARCclassic, an Axil 320 and a SPARCstation 10), but each ended up printing garbage to the serial port once the kernel had booted (I access the machines via serial console, using minicom or cu). I eventually figured it out (after some judicious Googling) – the installer assumes the serial console is using 7 bit, even parity. Gaaah!

With the correct serial port settings, I now get the following:

What would you like to do?
  1 - install SunOS mini-root
  2 - exit to single user shell
Enter a 1 or 2:

Damn, why doesn’t it say “Greetings Professor Falken”?

Note to self – stop playing with 10 year old operating systems.