Linux on Sparc is for masochists - that is the summary of my experience. With DMA problems on my SunBlade 100 (this machine uses ATA discs) and no end of bootloader issues with that and my AXi (an OEM version of the Ultra 10), I have simply given up.
A reflection on my odd sense of humour, the hostname of my Blade was Narsil - "the Blade that was broken". It had been my intention to re-name it Andruil once I finally got everything working. Well, now I have, although by taking the short-cut of ditching Linux and installing Solaris 10.
Despite my philosophy of Thou Shalt Not Use Proprietary Operating Systems, I would argue that one - Solaris 10 is not all that proprietary (consider OpenSolaris), two - it's free and three - Sun has done a lot for the Open Source cause and four - it's still Unix.
Smiffy at LinkedIn