Re: Linux questions regarding the sparc 5

From: bo snyder (bobo_snyder_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 11/26/03 

Date: 26 Nov 2003 10:34:53 -0800

"Thomas" <emgaron@gmx.net> wrote in message news:<3fc47a08$0$147$e4fe514c@dreader4.news.xs4all.nl>...
> 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.

Wow, thanks for everyone's input on this discussion.

The main reason why I don't use solaris is because I don't have it. I
got the hardware for free from a friend of mine and he only had redhat
6.2.

I am having boot problems once again. I installed aurora linux (the
only version I have besides redhat 6.2) and it installed fine (it
wanted 3 cd's). Once it finished installing it then said everything
was done and rebooted. Once it rebooted, it just sits there at the
main post window. it never gives me any errors or anytbhing now, it
just sits there with the blinking cursor. I tried doing a stop a and
then a boot-disk but it doesn't work.

how do i make this drive bootable? (first parittion is a 50 meg boot,
then the next section is the main / parittion (either 8 and change
gigs or 17 and change gigs, i tried it with 2 different external lvd
scsi drives.) and the 3rd partation is the little 192 meg swap
partition.

Any ideas?

Also i am curious about the sparc software, what version of solaris
should one use in a sparc 5?

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