--- John Ruschmeyer <jruschme_at_netzero.net> wrote:
> > Well, that got me closer to home. It is an IPC and looks like it isn't
> > really worth the time and effort. Just wonering how well they run
> > Linux with X.
>
> On a Sun4c system like the IPC, the canonical wisdom is to avoid Linux
> because of performance issues related to problems in the memory
> management code. The better bet is NetBSD (go with 1.5.3) or OpenBSD.
Agreed. Linux on sun4c is a *dog* (I tried to install Suse on a 1+)
On a 32MB machine, Solaris 2.5.1 runs faster.
> > Looks like a really low grade Sun, with the usual killer gfx output.
>
> IIRC, IPCs had mono onboard video.
Yes. A BW2 frame buffer. CG3s (basic Sun video) and CG6s (mildly
accelerated) are inexpensive to free. They are both 8-bit. You
probably don't want to deal with 24-bit graphics on hardware that old.
It's slow as molasses in January, but it does exist.
If the IPC was free and you had a burning desire to play with a SPARC,
by all means go for it. For people who want to learn Solaris (friends
who are looking to enhance their career opportunities), I'm recommending
OT hardware - SPARC5, Ultra 1/170e, etc. To put prices into perspective,
I picked up an as-is SPARC 5/110 at Dayton for $40, with 3 x 32MB (the
cheap bastards), 5 x 8MB, no disk, drive sled, 100BaseTX/Wide SCSI
and a dead PSU. Obviously, I paid too much, but I did get a couple of
$10 DIMMs, a sled, a 100BaseTX card, and a spare motherboard for my
troubles. I would not pay anywhere near half that for sun4c hardware.
-ethan
__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com
Received on Sat Oct 12 2002 - 10:43:00 BST