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Okay thanks to a bunch of you and google.com, I think i am finally getting
my hard drive isssues resolved with my sparcstation 5.

What I ended up doing was removing the internal 1 gig sca drive and just
using my fujitsu external 9 gig lvd scsi drive in an external case with the
S/E jumper enabled and now the sun recogizes it.

Now i have a few look and feely types of questions. I am a sucker for old
hardware and such (explains why I am playing witht this old thing) but I am
just curioius to know how well this sun will run RedHat 6.2 in the gnome
gui? (my machine currenlty has only 32 megs of memory but I ordered 7 more
32 meg dimms for it so it will be up to 256 megs of ram soon).

How does it handle the gui compared to newer machines? I also have been
playing with an old dual pentium pro box that I have that has a 6 gig ide
drive in it and it has 392 megs of ram (72 pin simms!!!) in it . I put
mandrake 9.1 on it which runs okay, but its stil a bit pokey, but then
again, thats a much newer gui.

Also I just downloaded and I am thinking of going with Aurora Linux instead
of redhat 6.2, is that a good idea or is there any other OS choices that
might be better or worse? Your opinions are valued greatly!!

Bo

Hello,

> Also I just downloaded and I am thinking of going with Aurora Linux
> instead of redhat 6.2, is that a good idea or is there any other OS
> choices that might be better or worse? Your opinions are valued
> greatly!!

It's just my opinion, but, on sparc, these two distributions sucks.
redhat 6.2 is unmaintened and Aurora is not finished. It will be very
hard to find all the new binaries in sparc rpm and so on.

If you want to really test linux on this machine, try debian. It's the
lighter linux based OS you will find on sparc and you would never have
problem to find up to date packages. Of course, Redhat installation is
easier, but i've tested them all and i was shocked how the redhat/aurora
was poking compared to debian.

--
@+ Yann Marigo
LE site libre du roller, skate et bmx :
http://www.envolee-fantastique.org

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003, Bo Snyder wrote:

> Also I just downloaded and I am thinking of going with Aurora Linux instead
> of redhat 6.2, is that a good idea or is there any other OS choices that
> might be better or worse? Your opinions are valued greatly!!

What's wrong with Solaris 9? That's the OS I'd recommend
(after you've installed that extra memory).

As a general rule, Sun hardware is happiest running Solaris.

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-online.net

Yann Marigo <yann.marigoNOFUCKINSPAM@laposte.net> wrote in message news:<20031126045839.5752de21.yann.marigoNOFUCKINS PAM@laposte.net>...

> It's just my opinion, but, on sparc, these two distributions sucks.
> redhat 6.2 is unmaintened and Aurora is not finished. It will be very
> hard to find all the new binaries in sparc rpm and so on.
>
> If you want to really test linux on this machine, try debian. It's the
> lighter linux based OS you will find on sparc and you would never have
> problem to find up to date packages. Of course, Redhat installation is
> easier, but i've tested them all and i was shocked how the redhat/aurora
> was poking compared to debian.

Well now I am confused. I am trying to locate the debian cd images
and i don't know where to get them. I went to www.linuxiso.org and
found the debian and the mirrors, but none of them are valid links.\

I go to www.debian.org and I am so confused as to what to download.

I just want to find the cd images (iso) of debian so I can burn it
with my burner and test away.

help...

Rich Teer <rich.teer@rite-group.com> writes:

> On Tue, 25 Nov 2003, Bo Snyder wrote:
>
> > Also I just downloaded and I am thinking of going with Aurora Linux instead
> > of redhat 6.2, is that a good idea or is there any other OS choices that
> > might be better or worse? Your opinions are valued greatly!!
>
> What's wrong with Solaris 9? That's the OS I'd recommend
> (after you've installed that extra memory).
>
> As a general rule, Sun hardware is happiest running Solaris.

I'd second that. With Linux, if you're not on x86 you're
definitely a second-class citizen, and most software you
can run on Linux will run just as happily on Solaris.
Why go through the hassle?

-SEan

Sean Burke <foobar@mystery.org> wrote:

> I'd second that. With Linux, if you're not on x86 you're
> definitely a second-class citizen, and most software you
> can run on Linux will run just as happily on Solaris.
> Why go through the hassle?

Well, one reason could be avoiding licence hassle and/or extra cost. The
cost of a licence for Solaris is prohibitive for a SS5. (yes I know you can
*download* it for free, but you only get a free licence for 1 CPU systems
bought from Sun or an authorized dealer, etc.pp.).

Cheerio,

Thomas
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Ribbrock http://www.ribbrock.org
"You have to live on the edge of reality - to make your dreams come true!"

Bo Snyder <bobo_snyder@hotmail.com> wrote:
[...]
> How does it handle the gui compared to newer machines? I also have been
> playing with an old dual pentium pro box that I have that has a 6 gig ide
> drive in it and it has 392 megs of ram (72 pin simms!!!) in it . I put
> mandrake 9.1 on it which runs okay, but its stil a bit pokey, but then
> again, thats a much newer gui.

I couldn't find much information about your SS5 (cpu speed, frame buffer),
but even if you have one of the faster SS5's (110MHz/170MHz), don't expect
too much. I found things like KDE or Gnome to be unbearable on those machine
(I own a SS5/170). Also, most likely you'll have a cg6 framebuffer, which
is 8bit - which doesn't seem to go down too well with the newer desktop
environments, IMO.
On the other hand, when using a small window manager, it's not too bad.
You'll *definitely* need the extra RAM, though. I'm using Window Maker, but
it has issues with 8bit displays on Sparc (regardless of OS), which never
got resolved. Fortunately, I have a S24 frame buffer (24bit) in my SS5...


> Also I just downloaded and I am thinking of going with Aurora Linux instead
> of redhat 6.2, is that a good idea or is there any other OS choices that
> might be better or worse? Your opinions are valued greatly!!

Depends on what you want to do. RH 6.2 is definitely old now and it's
unmaintained (as Yann mentioned already). I made very good experiences with
Aurora Sparc Linux 1.0 and I don't find it unfinished - but then again, I
never tried Debian. One thing to note with Linux is that it tends to run
unstable on a SS5/170 (TurboSparc). RH 6.2 will not even install on those
(at least it never did on the two I had).

Another options is Solaris, which is interesting, as - being from Sun as
well - it's supposed to run best on Sparc hardware. Unfortunately, it has
licence issues: Unless you got your SS5 from Sun or an authorized dealer,
you'll have to buy a licence (which is more than the SS5 is worth) or run
Solaris illegally (you can *download* the actual OS for free).

Last but not least, there are the *BSDs. I myself only ever used OpenBSD on
the SS5, but I'd assume that NetBSD will work as well. My experiences with
OpenBSD were very good - I've used a SS5/170 under OpenBSD as my ADSL
firewall+lightweight webserver for quite some time. I've also installed a
desktop for test purposes once and it felt a tad faster than the same setup
under Aurora, though I didn't do any "scientific" measurements.

Cheerio,

Thomas
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Ribbrock http://www.ribbrock.org
"You have to live on the edge of reality - to make your dreams come true!"

Toomas Soome wrote:
> >
> > Well, one reason could be avoiding licence hassle and/or extra cost. The
> > cost of a licence for Solaris is prohibitive for a SS5. (yes I know you can
> > *download* it for free, but you only get a free licence for 1 CPU systems
> > bought from Sun or an authorized dealer, etc.pp.).
> >
>
> have you more than 1 cpu in ss5?

You can't have more than 1 CPU in SS5.

Elar

Rich Teer <rich.teer@rite-group.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 25 Nov 2003, Bo Snyder wrote:
>
>> Also I just downloaded and I am thinking of going with Aurora Linux instead
>> of redhat 6.2, is that a good idea or is there any other OS choices that
>> might be better or worse? Your opinions are valued greatly!!

For years I have run NetBSD and OpenBSD with great success on older
workstations such as the SparcStation 5. From bitter personal experience
I found all Linux derivatives to be misdesigned junk, having all-round
inferior real-world performance and stability. But hey, it's your hardware
and your free time; if you just want to use what you know best, go for
Linux!

Anyway, Gnome or KDE will drag down any hardware with less than a 500 MHz
CPU and 256 MB RAM.

>What's wrong with Solaris 9? That's the OS I'd recommend (after you've
>installed that extra memory).

It costs money (in .nl: USD 20 + bank fees, etc., for a license, or
EUR 95 for a license + media kit), which is perhaps more than is worth
for a hobbyist.

I have one SS 5 left running, and recently installed Sloaris 9, and I find
it to be of very uneven quality. Some parts, such as X and Display
PostScript, are really good and surprisingly fast. Others, such as the disk
layout, the package tools and the startup scripts, are unbelievably archaic
and dumb. Some administration tasks are hidden behind layers of Motif
and/or Java untools, some are bare. It is really strange.

>As a general rule, Sun hardware is happiest running Solaris.

That might be the case, but I think it is more important that I'm happy.

scs

Hello,

> Well now I am confused. I am trying to locate the debian cd images
> and i don't know where to get them. I went to www.linuxiso.org and
> found the debian and the mirrors, but none of them are valid links.\
>
> I go to www.debian.org and I am so confused as to what to download.
>
> I just want to find the cd images (iso) of debian so I can burn it
> with my burner and test away.
>
> help...

Try this, sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch is a pretty fast mirror (and it's a
sunsite ;-) )

http://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch/ftp/m...current/sparc/
--
@+ Yann Marigo
Dernier mini_howto: "Ajouter le support ext3 à son noyau 2.2.2x" :
http://www.geekounet.org/docs/ext3_2...ini_howto.html
Article en Free Documentation Licence biensûr ! ;-)