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#1 (**permalink**) 04-09-2008, 10:41 PM

Can I put a any old pci scsi card into a sun ultra 10 workstation as
long as my os has drivers? (I will install bsd or linux on it)

What's your experience with scsi on it?

#2 (**permalink**) 04-09-2008, 10:41 PM

Justin Goldberg wrote:
> Can I put a any old pci scsi card into a sun ultra 10 workstation as
> long as my os has drivers? (I will install bsd or linux on it)
>

I'm not sure why you would want to install Linux or BSD on a Sun. I can
understand those operating systems might have some advantages (better
hardware support) on x86 hardware, but on SPARC you are going to have
far more issues. First Solaris was written for SPARC, and development of
Linux and BSD on Sun hardware must be very limited. I know some linux
distros have given up all development. So I think you are a bit unwise
installing anything other than Solaris.

> What's your experience with scsi on it?

Hardware wise no problem. Software (i.e. drivers in the operating
system) is another matter altogether. I've used an IBM card and some
other card in a Sun - having made sure the chip set was the same as one
supported by Solaris. You will just have to do the same - make sure the
chipset of the card is supported in whatever OS you use.

I know with Solaris, some 3rd party cards lake the firmware needed to
boot the OS, but are fine once it is booted.

#3 (**permalink**) 04-09-2008, 10:41 PM

In article <47fd089a@212.67.96.135>,
Dave <foo@coo.com> writes:
> Justin Goldberg wrote:
>> Can I put a any old pci scsi card into a sun ultra 10 workstation as
>> long as my os has drivers? (I will install bsd or linux on it)
>
> I'm not sure why you would want to install Linux or BSD on a Sun. I can
> understand those operating systems might have some advantages (better
> hardware support) on x86 hardware, but on SPARC you are going to have
> far more issues. First Solaris was written for SPARC, and development of
> Linux and BSD on Sun hardware must be very limited. I know some linux
> distros have given up all development. So I think you are a bit unwise
> installing anything other than Solaris.
>
>> What's your experience with scsi on it?
>
> Hardware wise no problem. Software (i.e. drivers in the operating
> system) is another matter altogether. I've used an IBM card and some
> other card in a Sun - having made sure the chip set was the same as one
> supported by Solaris. You will just have to do the same - make sure the
> chipset of the card is supported in whatever OS you use.
>
> I know with Solaris, some 3rd party cards lake the firmware needed to
> boot the OS, but are fine once it is booted.

If you want to boot from the card, it will either need to be
one with openfirmware BIOS (Adaptec have done them in the past,
such as the Adaptec 2940/OF (OF=openfirmware)), or one with a
chip which is directly supported by the openboot firmware (some
of the LSI chips driven by glm(7D) on Solaris).

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

#4 (**permalink**) 04-09-2008, 10:41 PM

> Can I put a any old pci scsi card into a sun ultra 10 workstation as
> long as my os has drivers? (I will install bsd or linux on it)

I know that for Solaris you need a card with a Symbios Logic bios.

--
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#5 (**permalink**) 04-15-2008, 08:26 PM

In comp.sys.sun.hardware Justin Goldberg <justgold79@gmail.com> wrote:
> Can I put a any old pci scsi card into a sun ultra 10 workstation as
> long as my os has drivers? (I will install bsd or linux on it)
>
> What's your experience with scsi on it?

A card with a Symbios Logic 875 or 876 should work.
Sun has also used newer Symbios SCSI chips in their
products, but I don't know if you can boot from those
SCSI cards in an Ultra 10, which is quite old now.
Those cards also work with Solaris.

You can put in just about any SCSI card if you don't
want to boot from it. A possible setup for Linux might
be putting a small /boot on the IDE disk and the rest
of the system on a SCSI disk.
Putting SCSI in an U5 or U10 is generally a good idea.

Dennis

--
Don't suffer from insanity...
Enjoy every minute of it.

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Sun Ultra 10 PCI SCSI Card?