Re: Solaris and Linux comparison

From: Greg Menke (gregm-news_at_toadmail.com)
Date: 12/25/03 

Date: 25 Dec 2003 14:10:07 -0500

Paul Eggert <eggert@twinsun.com> writes:
> At 25 Dec 2003 11:36:35 GMT, huge@ukmisc.org.uk (Huge) writes:
>
> >>Every last bit of Sun gear that I bought 10 years ago has been shut
> >>off permanently.
> >
> > So, your exerience applies universally, does it?
>
> What percentage of Sun gear that you bought 10 years ago is still
> operational? Let's hear your experience.

Sun Ultra 1 w/ multiport serial board acting as the console terminal,
gateway/firewall and tftp boot image server for a rack of powerpc
chassis running spacecraft simulation software.

Sun Ultra 10 running spacecraft ground station control software. Not
10 years old, but the Ultra 5 spare parts box is a bit older and works
just fine. The GSE developers say Linux & Windows just aren't stable
enough, so they develop for Solaris or AIX.

Sun Ultra 2 as DSL gateway/firewall.

Quad processor Sparcstation 20 as target hardware for the SMP board
support package I'm developing for an RTOS.

If it ever shows up, an Ultra 80 thats replacing our Linux Mac G3 box
as the lab server. The only particular reason we're upgrading is the
enterprise-wide backup software is binary-only (naturally), they
support Solaris but not Linux on a ppc.

My personal machine is a U60 from ebay. Not 10 years old, but its
lots cheaper than $1000. I'll betcha 1 cent that I'll still be using
it in 5 years- maybe it will be relegated to a minor role because its
been supplanted by something fancier.

At least 3 more Ultra 1, U2, Sparcstations I know of are in some of
the big server rooms nearby- presumably as more or less dumb
terminals. OTOH, several are pretty well kitted out with external
storage and tape drives.

I'll point out that none of the above boxes are webservers, and all
suit their applications just fine- a fancy new box wouldn't
appreciably speed anything up. Some of the boxes aren't 10 years old,
but they're all at least 5 except for the U10 which is 4 or so.

My parents have a Cyrix 166 fileserver running Linux- its not a Sun,
but its been supporting their office network since we bought the
hardware new in circa 1996. First w/ NT, then Linux- all file
service, printing, backups and internet dialup. Its a slow box, but
disk benchmarks over the network are pretty much what you'd expect
given the client machines and how slow Windows networking is.

I use my p.o.s Dell boxes w/ Linux as compile workstations since they
aren't really all that stable even using NT.

 
> I don't doubt that there are still a few ancient odd boxes running.
> But I do dispute that one should base minor (or even major) server
> purchases on the idea that the hardware will still be worth running 10
> years from now. By and large, 10-year-old Sun gear simply isn't worth
> the electric bill needed to power it on.

Well thankfully you're not my boss. I can save lots of new hardware
purchases and associated paperwork by scrounging up old Sun gear from
excess, shopping it and putting it right back in the ratrace.

Gregm

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