[geeks] Ultra 20 thoughts

[Scott Howard]

On Fri, Jul 01, 2005 at 07:17:05PM -0400, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> > If you choose an "upgraded" model for the "free system" they show the
> 
> There is nothing free about the machines anyway.  It's your garden
> variety false advertising.

Really!!  You should post something to Slashdot about that - otherwise
people will be suckered into thinking someone is going to give them
a computer for nothing!!!!!

> > The graphics options are priced the same if you buy them with the
> > system or independently.
> 
> They are also expensive.  Why can't they just let you use a $99 nVidia
> card?

How exactly are they stopping you?

> Does anyone know if the driver Sun ships is the unified driver that
> works on all of the cards?

There are multiple Solaris nVidia drivers floating about, at least one
of them written by nVidia themselves which I'm fairly sure supports most
of their cards. Or if you're running Windows then I suppose you can run
whatever drivers you would normally run under windows.

> I've always hated limitations on configuration like that.
> 
> It really makes life painful if you are trying to repair/replace an
> existing system.  You end up with a lot of stuff you don't need.

Welcome to the world of pre-boxed systems.

>     - it has only two drive bays

It's a workstation

>     - only 33MHz 32-bit PCI: it should have PCI-X

It has three PCI-E slots - one x16 slot (for the graphics card) and two x1
slots. The PCI is only there for legacy stuff.

>     - only a pair of SATA ports... even on workstations I want the
>       option of at least 3 drives: 1 for OS, a pair for data.

It's a workstation.
(And Data on a workstation?  ewww)

> It seems like they skimped a bit to me.

It's a workstation.

  Scott