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Sun Microsystems

Sun to Provide Parts for Low Cost Linux SPARC Boxes 35

Posted by CmdrTaco from the sign-me-up dept.
Nomad sent us a link to a press release where you can read that Sun is going to provide parts to select system integrators. These folks will work on building low cost, SPARC based boxes that will run Linux. "
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Sun to Provide Parts for Low Cost Linux SPARC Boxes More

Sun to Provide Parts for Low Cost Linux SPARC Boxes

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  • wow imagine the beowulf cluster you could make with these...

    Sorry. I had to say it just to be irritating. Altough I think that Sun has a good idea, I would
    buy a sparc motherboard+CPU if it was under 400$.


    celer
  • I believe that 24 bit color is now standard with the newer models of the Ultra 5? They made some changes in the base configuraion within the past 3 months when they introduced some newer models of the Ultra 5.
  • This is no big deal. There have been cheap clone Sparc machines available from third party manufacturers for many years, eg. from Hamcom in Germany and their sister company Transtec in the UK. They can provide specifications similar to Sun's own machines but for a lot less money.
  • What the hell does this message mean? Every time I try to get the article, it comes up with this message. Is it a 404 error?
  • You oughtta update the link... :)
  • You might also want to check out a article in The Register [195.89.1.232] about this. Keep an eye on Solaris Central [solariscentral.org] for updated news on this issue.

  • 5.0 (Score:1)

    by Kludge ( 13653 )
    "Fully supported versions of the Linux 5.0 operating system will be provided by fee-based Linux distributors and providers like Red Hat Software Inc. and Caldera. These companies will provide disk or CD versions of Linux 5.0 , as well as installation assistance, documentation and 24x7 technical support. Support and consulting companies such as Linuxcare Inc. provide a full range of Linux-based support and customization services. "

    Hey where can I get Linux version 5.0? I only have 2.2!

    Idiots. They should hire people who know something to write their press releases.
  • Even Sun will tell you privately that it was way off on its Sparc 4/5 packages and it was dying painfully with its SuperSPARC architecture. UltraSPARC is a whole new way to rock and roll, though - it should not be compared to the old architecture.
  • It does have one definite advantage over the PC boxen - or mine did, anyway.

    I own a Tatung SPARC 5 running SunOS 4.x and it's the most reliable machine I've ever owned - by far. It cost me around $4,300 (without monitor) and ran amazing.com from mid-1994 to mid-1998. It would only go down on the building's occasional power failures. Finally, it apparently crashed - I later found someone had just pulled the ethernet cable by accident, but that made me pull the machine and replace it with the SGI O2 I had here. The O2's a lot more fun to use, but, sadly, have about 1/10th the reliability. So I still have the SunOS box and may put it back to use someday, as a name server/spare web server/etc.

    Incidentally, does anyone know details about the Sparc's year 2000 status? I seem to remember reading SunOS 4.x is totally non-compliant, and would be curious to learn what breaks. I understand Solaris decreases performance significantly on these old machines.

    D
  • hear hear.

    On most of our systems, we don't even have a video card. I always thought it backwards of PCs to require a video card (default for most BIOSes) and not have any option to boot via a serial port like you can with a SUN. Could LILO be rewritten to allow serial-port boots?

  • Lets not get too bent out of shape here.
    RedHat is Linux (which of course does not mean Linux is always RedHat). Some people are always going to be confused by the difference between equivalence and equality relations, that's why bleach has warning labels. No reason outlaw the statement "RedHat is Linux" just because some might misinterpret it.

    Like it or not, RedHat is the predominant "modern" distribution, and by numbers will get more press. Remember, they aren't "the other team". No need to boo and hiss. So long as RedHat remains an open-source distribution, their gains ultimately help the source, which should be the most important factor to all of us (if not to exclusion). Its how we got where we are.

  • As someone above mentioned, these machines were designed specifically for use as workstations and came with nice, big, expensive monitors. But you are correct: only minimal video hardware is necessary on a server. My servers have TOTAL crap in the way of video hardware, and no dedicated head.

    And please be careful who you call a Moron. Here you are an AC, but in life the mistake could cost you.

    By the way...I like Suns, but this video thing still bothers me.

    --Lenny
  • Like 2.7 to 7 might be how to reach Linux 5.

    Seriously, this is cool. Maybe Sun will feel obligated to make their parts price competitive with Alpha (pretty much alone in the value Linux workstation world right now), which is good for all of us.

    With a little luck I may be able to get a blazingly fast SparkELC! I'm cooking now!
  • Anybody know where the updated version is? I ran around the Business Wire
    site looking at today and yesterday's press release, and the only thing that looks close is
    http: //www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/f_headline.cgi?day1 /190540189&ticker=sunw [businesswire.com]
    which talks about Sun adding four new companies to it's systems integrator pool.
  • One mistake not to make is to compare compile times between SPARC and Intel boxes. I've had a few people compare compile times as a way of comparing the two but the SPARC systems are RISC-like and the compiler does a lot more work than the CISC-like compiler needs to do for Intel.

    Given good optimum code, the UltraSPARC systems are much faster, and server duty under multiple I/O streams, hundreds of TCP/IP connections, etc. is exemplary. We finally are taking a machine out of service and moving it to a more modern one. This Ultra 140 with 256MB memory ran a heavily-used 200MB database, a heavily used web server, e-mail services including POP3 and IMAP4 for 9,000 accounts, a radius server, a heavily-used name server, interactive services like Pine, syslogging, minor NFS, SNMP services/probes, and more - and maintained a 1.3 load under its heaviest usage. It only had 4 disk packs for I/O, too, and a lot of those were the older 5800 RPM drives on a SCSI-II bus!

    {typing from his Ultra 5}
  • I want that, too

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