Debian ran great on SPARC hardware.
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Bob_Robertson Feb 05, 2010 5:53 PM EDT |
I remember puzzling through the strange Debian installer screen on a SPARC-10, connected through the serial port (no monitor), but once it was booted it responded just like any other Debian system. And it ran _well_. I have always had a soft-spot for SPARC hardware, being the system I learned UNIX-style life upon, with SunOS-4 in 1992. I'm almost sorry they were "bought". Much better would have been a liquidation, with all their "intellectual property" simply thrown into the public domain. OpenSPARC, OpenOffice, OpenJava. |
| gus3 Feb 05, 2010 8:28 PM EDT |
And I'm glad I have a 32-bit SPARC. It's fun launching NetBSD through bootp. |
| Steven_Rosenber Feb 05, 2010 9:49 PM EDT |
I've got a couple 32-bit SPARC boxes ... too bad Debian only has 64-bit SPARC now ... I've run Solaris 9 on my SS20 but now run OpenBSD on it. It's fairly snappy for a 50 MHz, 128 MB box ... but that's relative snappiness (meaning 50 MHz is 50 MHz ...) |
| tuxchick Feb 05, 2010 11:56 PM EDT |
Are SPARC MHz faster than x86 MHz? |
| Steven_Rosenber Feb 06, 2010 12:56 AM EDT |
Quoting:Are SPARC MHz faster than x86 MHz? That's a tough one, but I'd have to say yes. Since SPARC was designed from the ground up to run Unix, that's got to mean something. That said, you are really limited on what will run on a 32-bit SPARC. In OpenBSD, I could never get a Web browser beyond Dillo to run. They're not in packages, and that's a clue as to why the ports won't compile. In NetBSD there are packages for everything, but they're autobuilt and when it comes to browsers they don't run. That's the dirty little secret about ports in BSD; many are built, but they only compile and run on certain architectures. If all you're interested in is the base install, everything runs on every architecture. It's when you want to add packages or ports and actually do something that you run into trouble on the "difficult" architectures, and 32-bit SPARC is definitely among those. OpenBSD (and FreeBSD) take care of 64-bit SPARC rather well. 32-bit is pretty much an orphan. Running Solaris 9 on my Sparcstation 20 was an interesting experience. GNOME (yes, it has GNOME) is an exercise in frustration. The CDE desktop runs OK. The Solaris 9 box of discs (cost me $1 on eBay) includes Star Office, the paid version of OpenOffice, and it runs OK. Netscape Communicator is the default browser, and it's awful. You can actually get a Firefox 2.x package for 32-bit SPARC. The graphics are a bit screwed up, but it runs faster than Netscape. No FF 3 for 32-bit SPARC, to my knowledge. In OpenBSD, you can run quite a few apps, but with no Web browser and no "modern" e-mail client (and by that I mean Thunderbird), it's not much for the desktop... and if you're that limited, might as well grab an old x86 at 100 MHz from somebody's trash heap and run that. You can run it as a Web server with OpenBSD, but who needs that noisy, power-hungry box for that. So for me, SPARC 32 is pretty much a curiosity that I've satisfied ... x86 is just easier for actually doing stuff. |
| Bob_Robertson Feb 06, 2010 9:52 AM EDT |
TC, I'll echo Steven. The mere 50MHz of the SPARC seemed as fast as 100MHz of x86, but everything is subjective. It took years for graphics on x86 to equal what that SPARC2 could do, huge dual heads with fine color and excellent resolution. But I believe that x86 has long since surpassed the SPARC development. If there was a 64bit SPARC at 2GHz it might surpass x86 at 3GHz, but we may never know. |
| Sander_Marechal Feb 06, 2010 12:49 PM EDT |
Quoting:If there was a 64bit SPARC at 2GHz it might surpass x86 at 3GHz, but we may never know. I have a 4-way 1.5 Ghz 64-bit TI UltraSparc IIIi Jalapeno at hand. What did you want to test? |
| Bob_Robertson Feb 06, 2010 1:07 PM EDT |
> I have a 4-way 1.5 Ghz 64-bit TI UltraSparc IIIi Jalapeno at hand. What did you want to test? Pardon me, I'm drooling. |
| Sander_Marechal Feb 07, 2010 6:10 AM EDT |
Well, it's not mine. But I get to use it :-D |
| Bob_Robertson Feb 07, 2010 11:59 AM EDT |
A friend was given a four-CPU (each 4-core) HP server that had come with Vista, because the business that had bought it tried to use it for something and simply couldn't get it to work well enough. They blamed the hardware. He kept his mouth shut until he got it home, then put Linux on it. That's just a long way of saying, "Some people have all the luck!" |
| gus3 Feb 07, 2010 12:16 PM EDT |
I got a laser printer that way. All it needed was toner. (No, they weren't THAT stupid. They'd done some figuring, and realized refilling an inkjet was cheaper than toner. Plus, I'd wanted a laser printer for 18 years...) |
| jdixon Feb 07, 2010 6:20 PM EDT |
>They'd done some figuring, and realized refilling an inkjet was cheaper than toner. Eh? All the figures I've ever seen say the opposite. Especially when you consider that ink cartridges which sit unused for more than a month or two tend to stop working. |
| gus3 Feb 07, 2010 7:08 PM EDT |
There was no protracted idle period on this printer. Also, they used a refill kit; every cart got two refills before being discarded. |
| jdixon Feb 07, 2010 8:36 PM EDT |
> Also, they used a refill kit; every cart got two refills before being discarded. That would cut the cost considerably. However, you can also by refurbished toner cartridges, which would probably be an equivalent savings. Oh well, if they've done the math, and the inkjet is actually cheaper, that's what they should use. |
| Steven_Rosenber Feb 08, 2010 12:03 AM EDT |
I've literally got two copy-paper boxes filled with SPARC parts; maybe 20 processors, a bunch of really old memory (most not usable even by my standards), and there's one dual-processor (two 50 MHz) board. I ought to try installing that in the SS20 to see if I can feel the awesome power of three 50 MHz SPARC CPUs. Of course I'd have to wipe OpenBSD and try either Solaris or NetBSD; OpenBSD doesn't do multiprocessor mode in 32-bit SPARC. |
| Sander_Marechal Feb 08, 2010 4:24 AM EDT |
Quoting:A friend was given a four-CPU (each 4-core) HP server that had come with Vista, because the business that had bought it tried to use it for something and simply couldn't get it to work well enough. I have a HP ProLiant G3 Dual Xeon sitting at home for pretty much the same reason. I used it as a home server for quite some time. Eventually I replaced it with a Dell PowerEdge optimised for low power consumption. The ProLiant is great, but it's hungry and sounds like an F-16 during take-off. |
| gus3 Feb 08, 2010 12:46 PM EDT |
At my last IT job, we had two monstrous (6U?) PA-RISC servers. One was a 2-way, one was a 4-way. Each one weighed at least 75 kilos. Two days in June, the circuit breakers tripped, because the building's cooling system for our area couldn't keep up. I was so happy when they went back to H-P... |
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