SEO

I have a Sparc 5 box here and I was wondering if there was any way to tell
how much memory the machine was detecting.

Also, any links to basic diagonstics for a Sun Sparc 5 would be appreciated!

My Sparc 5 is an 85Mhz unit with 256meg of memory (I think), two 2gig SCSI
drives internally, slim Sun internal CDRom and Turbo XGX framebuffer card.

Everything seems to work, but being new to this I can't even get an OS
installed with confidence.

Any suggestions as to what OS to run? The box won't be dedicated to much,
but I'd like to try configuring it as a workstation and/or web server.

Thanks!

P.s. Pardon the multipost... Hit SEND too fast.

Doesn't wrote:

> I have a Sparc 5 box here and I was wondering if there was any way to tell
> how much memory the machine was detecting.

Doesn't it tell you when you turn it on? All my Sun machines does that.

> Also, any links to basic diagonstics for a Sun Sparc 5 would be
> appreciated!

http://www.google.com/search?q=sun+boot+prom+commands

> My Sparc 5 is an 85Mhz unit with 256meg of memory (I think), two 2gig SCSI
> drives internally, slim Sun internal CDRom and Turbo XGX framebuffer card.
>
> Everything seems to work, but being new to this I can't even get an OS
> installed with confidence.
>
> Any suggestions as to what OS to run? The box won't be dedicated to much,
> but I'd like to try configuring it as a workstation and/or web server.

Perhaps you should try Linux. It might be easier than Solaris to figure out.

--
Lasse Jensen [fafler at linuxmail dot org]

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 07:49:20 +0200, Lasse Jensen wrote:
> Doesn't wrote:
>> I have a Sparc 5 box here and I was wondering if there was any way to tell
>> how much memory the machine was detecting.
>
> Doesn't it tell you when you turn it on? All my Sun machines does that.
>
>> Also, any links to basic diagonstics for a Sun Sparc 5 would be
>> appreciated!
>
> http://www.google.com/search?q=sun+boot+prom+commands
>
>> My Sparc 5 is an 85Mhz unit with 256meg of memory (I think), two 2gig SCSI
>> drives internally, slim Sun internal CDRom and Turbo XGX framebuffer card.
>>
>> Everything seems to work, but being new to this I can't even get an OS
>> installed with confidence.

It is not that hard. Nothing you can harm. Just go for it! Since ISTR
Sparc5 is sun4m architecture(?) it should run Solaris up to 9 (but not 10,
which won't run on a 32-bit CPU IIRC). I have some Sparc-20s. Love 'em.

>> Any suggestions as to what OS to run? The box won't be dedicated to much,
>> but I'd like to try configuring it as a workstation and/or web server.
>
> Perhaps you should try Linux. It might be easier than Solaris to figure out.

I think the usual experience and opinion is that Sun gear works best with
Solaris (properly designed for Sun gear). IMO Linux seems to have a number
of x86 leanings/dependencies designed into it. I know it runs on a number
of different CPUs but still many Linux programmers seem to just assume x86.

I did manage to install Debian Woody on an Ultra2 and tinker with it a
bit. BTW, it did NOT install on a CycleQUAD Ultra2+ clone. Well, it seemed
to install, but crashed/hung on trying to boot. So, I hesitate...

Personally, I run Solaris on Sun SPARC and Linux on x86 PCs. The Linux
thing is to gain experience, and for a while there was some Sun ambiguity
about x86 platform. I would only try hard to put Linux on Sun SPARC if: I
had lots of play time (not likely to happen) or I had some particular
software that would refuse to compile/run on Solaris (can't imagine why)
while there is a Sun SPARC (compilable? binary?) Linux version of that
software that I really, really need (so badly). YMMV

--
Juhan Leemet
Logicognosis, Inc.