[SunRescue] How FAST is a SUN IPC (OT)

[Mike Hebel]

Where the hell did you acquire a Cray from?  I have accumulated a couple of
SGI R4400's but a Cray?

I'm just amazed - I've never personally seen a Cray let alone got the chance
to assimilate
one into my home network.

Way cool!  Got pictures?

As for the NetBSD thing I completely agree.  Solaris is great and stable
_if_ the box is fast enough but for those of us that scrounge lower-end
Sparc hardware NetBSD/Sparc runs far faster and better than anything else.

Sincerely,

Mike Hebel

> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: rescue-admin at sunhelp.org [mailto:rescue-admin at sunhelp.org]On
> >Behalf Of Dave McGuire
> >Sent: Saturday, July 08, 2000 5:00 AM
> >To: rescue at sunhelp.org
> >Subject: RE: [SunRescue] How FAST is a SUN IPC
> >
> >
> >On July 7, Paul Theodoropoulos wrote:
> >> What I don't understand is why folks run anything other than
> >> Solaris on SPARC hardware? It goes without saying that Solaris is
> >> finely tuned to the SPARC architecture. I've been running Solaris
> >> for years, and I just don't see the shortcomings in it that people
> >> constantly refer to (e.g. "Slowlaris").
> >
> >  Uhhh...
> >
> >   1) I don't much like SysV.  Pure personal preference here.
> >   2) Source code isn't free.
> >   3) My favorite SPARC OS, NetBSD/sparc, kicks its ass in terms of:
> >     a) Performance, especially networking.
> >     b) "Modernness" (native ipv6, built-in raid, etc etc etc)
> >     c) Hardware support (when Sun's marketing department arbitrarily
> >                          decides that they no longer want to sell a
> >                          particular board, they deny ever having made
> >                          it and remove the drivers from Solaris)
> >     d) Platform independence.  Some of us run more than just Sun
> >        hardware on our networks.  My home network is a mixture of
> >        several different platforms, each chosen, built, and tuned
> >        to its specific application.  With two exceptions...SGIs
> >	running IRIX (because that's what they do) and a Cray running
> >        Unicos (because...well, that's what they do), they ALL run
> >        NetBSD, regardless of whether they're a sparc, an alpha, a
> >        Cobalt MIPS box, or even one lowly PentiumIII.  Consistency,
> >        both in terms of environment and in terms of performance,
> >        gives me a woodie the size of a California redwood.  And I
> >        settle for nothing less.  The consistency, that is.
> >     e) Reliability.  The shit Just Works.  And in those rare
> >        occasions in which it doesn't, I get better and faster
> >        support out of the NetBSD mailing lists than I EVER could
> >        out of Sun, even when I was buying hardware for one of the
> >        largest commercial customers they've ever had.
> >   4) Software support by the free software community.  Like it or
> >      not, the software that *really* runs most of the Internet
> >      (with the exception of Cisco router firmware) is free stuff
> >      like GNU goodies, Apache, sendmail, etc...not the commercial
> >      profitware that Sun (and others) push in magazine ads for
> >      newbie admins to drool over as they sit in front of their
> >      little Windows boxes wearing their little ties and following
> >      their little rules.  Now, admittedly, it's getting much better
> >      with 7 and 8...but in earlier Solaris releases, try getting
> >      ANYTHING to compile correctly.  Their headers and libraries
> >      were so damn bastardized I'm surprised they shipped a working
> >      "ls" with some of those releases.
> >   5) I don't like the way Solaris, in its early NEARLY COMPLETELY
> >      UNUSABLE FORM around the early 2.x releases, was utterly FORCED
> >      on the Sun user community by Sun MarketingSystems.  During
> >      that time, I was responsible for nearly a thousand sun
> >      machines, some of which just weren't supported by Solaris.
> >      Sun pulled the rug out from under me by discontinuing
> >      maintenance on their perfectly acceptable and very popular OS,
> >      forcing me to steal a copy of the source code and continue
> >      its maintenence my damn self.  We had a great deal of SunOS4
> >      experience, and we had VERY finely-tuned machines and
> >      networks...pouring an entirely different OS on the thing would
> >      have put Digex out of business before we ever went public.
> >
> >  Now, I admit, I've warmed up to Solaris quite a bit as of releases 7
> >and 8.  But I've already switched to an OS that didn't suck in the
> >first place.  Too late.
> >
> >> I'm not anti-Linux (or xxxBSD for that matter) either. I just don't
> >> see the point of linux, at least not on SPARC hardware, when
> >> Solaris 8 is "free" and runs like a bloody bat out of hell.
> >
> >  I'm not anti-Linux either...I think it's ridiculous that they've
> >[all but against Linus' wishes] tried to port the damn thing to
> >everything under the sun (so to speak) but I do like the OS for the
> >most part.  It's got personality.  But until you hand me a CDROM
> >containing the source code for Solaris8, don't you dare call it
> >"free".
> >
> >  Another point...I make a LOT of money with SS1/SS1+/SS2 machines.
> >Solaris8 won't even run on those machines, will it?  Arbitrarily
> >dropping support for hardware that is older but STILL USEFUL just to
> >try to force people to buy more hardware is BOGUS.
> >
> >
> >  Anyway...I hope I've given you a few points to think about.  It's
> >different for each of us, our companies (and home networks) all work
> >in different ways...this is where my experience has brought me.
> >
> >            -Dave McGuire
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