I got the laptop working (it is an old Twinhead A5000) with a basic install of Gentoo. However, I am running Gnome and I cannot find a terminal emulator. I think I can run X11 and get a terminal emulator, but, I can't figure out how to load X11. More research required.
Still, the x86 box is actually running, so I should be able to start working on the sparc box later this week.
Thanks to everyone for their help so far.