Sun IPC OS?

From: Carlos Murillo <carlos_murillo_at_epm.net.co>
Date: Wed Jul 24 07:30:01 2002

At 09:41 AM 7/24/02 +0200, you wrote:
>On 2002.07.22 06:57 Tarsi wrote:
>
>> What do you all recommend I run on my Sun IPC machines for an OS?
>NetBSD if it has to be a free *ix, because it runs well on that hardware
>and it is a good, nice and clean *ix. I use a SPARC ELC (same age) with
>NetBSD for toasting CDRs. (Wait for NetBSD 1.6. It will be released
>soon.)

I second this if you want to run a free Unix.

>SunOS 4 if you happen to have a copy / license, because this is the
>"native" OS for this hardware. It is somewhat "old", but still a good
>bais for your work.
>
>I don't have any experience with OpenBSD, so I can't say more about it.
>It may do as well as NetBSD.
>Linux will do too, but to my experience it creeps on Sun4c machines and
>is / was buggy as hell.

I second the commentary on Linux. However, regarding the use of Sun OS 4.1,
I disagree. While SunOS 4.x is interesting because of its usage of
NeWS (something like displaypostscript), it is hopelessly behind, not Y2K
compliant and there is no support. You will have trouble building the
newer GNU utilities. If the machines have at least 32MB RAM (64MB is
better), you can run Solaris 2.6 on them, which is still supported,
comprehensive patches are still being released and is Y2K compliant and
furthermore, 2.6-specific pre-built packages can still be found at
www.sunfreeware.com. 2.7 will also run, but it will be hopelessly slow.

The only reason to use Sun 4.x is if you have interesting hardware
for which only 4.x drivers were released (I have one such system
with a GPIB interface; I only have 4.x drivers, so I've added a second
HD with 4.1.4 in it).

carlos.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Carlos E. Murillo-Sanchez carlos_murillo_at_nospammers.ieee.org
Received on Wed Jul 24 2002 - 07:30:01 BST