Sun SPARCstation 2

From: Tom Uban <uban_at_ubanproductions.com>
Date: Wed Feb 14 13:33:54 2001

I think that not being able to access greater than 2GB makes it difficult
to setup a large disk, even if you are keeping the individual partitions
to less than 2GB. I don't know the exact details, but the version of SunOS
that I had just wouldn't do it. Maybe there was a patch or update which
would have fixed the problem as you describe.

In my case, I wanted to use the IPX on a daily basis and be able to install
all of the latest applications (apache, qpopper, etc.). This is why I went
with NetBSD. I tried Linux, but it was dog slow on the sparc (see my previous
post about this).

If he doesn't have a real application for the box and doesn't require the
latest greatest software, then one of the old SunOS releases should be fine.

--tom

At 01:49 PM 2/14/01 -0500, you wrote:
>> From: Tom Uban <uban_at_ubanproductions.com>
>>
>> The older SunOS system runs very well on this, but condider that if you
>> need to use a "modern" hard drive, you will be limited to about 2GB (I
think)
>> if you use one of the older OS's. That is why I went to NetBSD, it has kept
>> up with the latest hardware...
>
>There may be firmware limitations on the location of the root
>filesystem, depending on the SCSI commands used by the boot PROM.
>
>I think you're correct that (in stock SunOS4) PARTITIONS cannot exceed
>2GB, but I'm happily runing a 4GB disk (largest partition is 1.6G),
>and I've seen 9GB disks on SunOS4 systems. You may not be able to do
>absolute seeks to the 'c' partition with disk larger than 2G, but
>that's never caused me any problems. I think there was also a
>"disksuite" add-on, to handle large disks more gracefully, but it's
>not needed.
>
>-phil
>
>
Received on Wed Feb 14 2001 - 13:33:54 GMT