[SunRescue] Q on "optimal" OS for Sun4c machines, now that Solaris 8 won't run

[jwbirdsa at picarefy.picarefy.comjwbirdsa]

   For commercial OSes, the fundamental problem with supporting enormous
ranges of hardware is testing as much as anything else. Everything that's
supported has to be tested to some degree, and adding platforms can cause
testing work to grow exponentially. And systems of the correct type have
be to be available to developers and testers, which means they have to be
maintained... After a while, the temptation is almost overwhelming to pick
the platforms that the fewest customers care about and drop them, in order
to cut the development and testing efforts down to a more mangeable size.
Otherwise, any company will eventually be brought to a grinding halt,
anchored by the weight of supporting everything that it's ever done before.

   For free OSes, nobody gives a damn about testing, it seems. Do not,
repeat NOT, assume that just because something is listed as supported that
it will actually work. It's listed because it worked at least one time in
one configuration for one person somewhere. Unless it's a popular piece of
hardware (or the pet of a maintainer), odds are that it probably doesn't
anymore. I've been burned too many times to have any faith in the
supported-hardware lists.

   --James B.