Re: Does 5.0.7 run well on modern hardware?
- From: "Brian K. White" <brian@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:15:09 -0400
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen M. Dunn" <stephen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sco.misc
To: <distro@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2008 7:55 PM
Subject: Does 5.0.7 run well on modern hardware?
Before I ask more specific questions, let me put one thing in the
open: "upgrade to OSR6 - it handles this stuff nicely" is not a useful
answer unless you have a legal copy of OSR6 you are willing to
give me for free. (I'll provide more details as to why this is the
case at the bottom of this article.)
I'd be interested in general comments on this, as well as answers
to the following specific concerns. In cases where I mention specific
hardware, I'm suggesting what's likely; it's not carved in stone.
CPU: it's likely to be an Intel Q9450 (Yorkfield Core 2 Quad,
2.6 GHz). The release notes for 5.0.7MP5 don't list *any* Core 2
CPUs as being supported; the official list stops at Xeon (which isn't
actually a type of CPU; it's a marketing label applied to everything from
PII to Core 2) and P4. Now, I suspect a more modern CPU will work,
just as it was generally possible to run older versions on newer CPUs
than what the official support list says. Can anyone confirm whether
5.0.7 runs successfully on recent Core 2 CPUs, preferably Yorkfield
or Wolfdale?
PCI Express: All remotely recent motherboards with support for
remotely recent CPUs use PCIe. OSR6 explicitly supports PCIe; I have
been unable to find any statement, either way, about whether 5.0.7 does.
Wikipedia suggests that the difference is in hardware and an OS which
supports PCI should work with PCIe. Is this true in practice? With
the possible exception of video (see the next question), I am unlikely
to have any PCIe cards, or at least any that 5.0.7 needs to talk to,
but I *will* have at least one PCI card, and often the support for
"legacy" buses in chipsets is done by making them essentially subsidiaries
of the more modern bus - which could mean that if PCIe isn't supported,
the PCI cards won't work, either.
Video: 5.0.7's list of supported video cards is, at least for the
most part, stuck in the early 2000s, with a handful of AGP cards being
the most recent models. Of course, AGP is long since dead, so whether
I use built-in video on the motherboard or an add-in PCIe card, it
won't be supported. There's always the old VESA BIOS driver; how
well does this work with modern video (motherboard or PCIe)? If
it matters, the video is likely to be either a built-in Intel GMA3100
or similar, or a low-end ATI card such as a Radeon HD2600 Pro; I
don't do anything that requires a high-end video card, but I do need
X Windows to work properly.
(end of main questions)
OK, now, for those who wonder why OSR6 isn't an option: this is a
personal-use system which dual-boots XP and OSR5.0.7. All of the
critical stuff it does is done in XP; 5.0.7 is nice to have but not
necessary. So if I can continue to run 5.0.7 on the new hardware, I
will, but paying additional money to upgrade it to OSR6 is not in the
cards.
Thanks in advance.
I have 5.0.7 running fine on a Vaio TZ subnotebook.
The difficulties were in getting it installed (cd drive is internally connected via usb of all things) and finding a nic driver for the built-in Marvell gigabit.
But running on a core 2 duo, including using both cores, without a smp license, is no problem.
It's behaving nicely with grub in the MBR and 4 different OS's on 4 different primary fdisk partitions. OSR 5.0.7, Win XP, FreeBSD 7, Linux (various and changing).
My video is a built in intel 3100-something, but I think I might not have ever even tried to start X on it.
5.0.7 basically is fine with even the newest cpu's so far, and ever since about mp4 or mp5 gives you full use of hyperthreded and multi-core cpu's without an smp license. However you must install smp, which ideally has to be done before all other updates so it's hard to udate an existing system but in your case doing a fresh install it's no problem.
Amazingly there are both marvell and realtek gigabit nic drivers for osr5 now.
I would never put them in a server but since my notebook has a marvell built in and no other way to connect, it was a lifesaver finding a driver that worked after several months having to move things on & off via usb thumb drives and cd's!
However note also, the most recent versions of the marvell and realtek gigabit drivers I've found, while the marvell one miraculously worked on my Vaio, neither driver works on _any_ of the pile of common marvell & realtek gigabit pci nics I have from linksys, netgear, d-link, usrobotics, belkin, nameless... etc... In desperation one weekend I tried them all on a box (most of the marvells had exactly the same chip number despite being from many vendors, so it's not surprising really, once one didn't work that neither did the rest)
As for pci-e
I have installed 5.0.6 and 5.0.7 on many machines ever since pci-e even came out, usually with the two most important cards (raid & nic) connected via pci-e. No problem there.
I think there are still lot's of pitfalls where osr5 won't work well on particular motherboards or on particular versions of particular chips etc... but I don't think there is any simple generic rule you can use to assure yourelf that a particular hardware combo will work except to buy from a vendor who has already specifically tested and vetted configurations on osr5 specifically.
I've been using Seneca Data for years and they still are excellent for that. I've seen their main osr5 guy hunt down and solve enough arcane compatibility problems (before shipping, so I never had to) to value that extremely highly. Many times a particular intel or supermicro motherboard would fail in some way, but the fix was to ensure that the hardware rev was of a certain number, or bios setting set a certain way, or cards installed only in certain slots or only in a certain order or avoiding certain combinations, etc..., while outwardly the working and non-working boards were exactly the same and all add-in parts were nominally officially supported with recent drivers from sco or the vendor or both etc...
Sometimes all the parts are compatible but there is no way to get the scsi or raid card onto it's own irq seperate from the nic or the usb & multi-i/o, or no way to get the two built-in nics not to share an irq, and it works ok as long as you never configure, never use, the 2nd nic, etc..
It's really a crap shoot where the only way to really know is to test and actually run a while.
--
Brian K. White brian@xxxxxxxxx http://www.myspace.com/KEYofR
+++++[>+++[>+++++>+++++++<<-]<-]>>+.>.+++++.+++++++.-.[>+<---]>++.
filePro BBx Linux SCO FreeBSD #callahans Satriani Filk!
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: Does 5.0.7 run well on modern hardware?
- From: Stephen M. Dunn
- Re: Does 5.0.7 run well on modern hardware?
- References:
- Does 5.0.7 run well on modern hardware?
- From: Stephen M. Dunn
- Does 5.0.7 run well on modern hardware?
- Prev by Date: Re: Does 5.0.7 run well on modern hardware?
- Next by Date: Re: Does 5.0.7 run well on modern hardware?
- Previous by thread: Re: Does 5.0.7 run well on modern hardware?
- Next by thread: Re: Does 5.0.7 run well on modern hardware?
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
