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

[Andy Wallis]

> My friends, and myself, have all been computer geeks from an early age, and now
> in our late teens to early twenties, we are all unix users, and mostly unix and
> network admins.  We've been using computers all our lives and know how to take
> one apart and put it together.  We can  even do this with computers we've never
> heard of before, because we get the basic similarities, and our engineering
> skills help us fill in the rest.
> >   Wow.  Is it possible that we are the last generation of people that
> > will know how computers actually *work*?  No computer *science* will
> > be learnt on Windows boxes, in my opinion.
	I don't think any generation will be the last to know how a
computer works. I agree with Chris that techs, engineers and the rest do
fall into those 3 categories. How technical someone is depends on how
they came into the field, what they have been exposed to and what the
general interests are. 
	It's very important that students(of any kind) know that there
is a world beyond the home computer or Wintel. They should know how to
work under heterogenous platforms and operating systems to get that
notion ground into them. Recenty, my now alma mater had to upgrade the
UNIX lab which used to run Gateways running Solaris Intel 2.5.1. After
those got run down, the professor who ran it asked for Ultra 5 and 10s
so they could keep Solaris in there and have the students exposed to
other platforms. The university gave him a bunch of Dells with Linux on
them and that was it. When I left the university, I talked to some of
the newer students who hadn't used the old Solaris lab but used the
Linux one. They had no real idea what other platforms were out there. I
got blank stares when I mentioned Sparc, Alpha, PA-RISC, RS/6000 and
some processors. Most of them thought that Intel was the only large chip
maker and that MS Windows was the only real OS with Linux being the
largest minority player.
	The ones who were more hardware oriented had an easier time
learning about other platforms but the MIS and software only kids had a
very hard time understanding those concepts.When I've talked to fellow
new hires at my work, they have the same sentiments and/or knowledge
gaps. It's no wonder I got flagged down quickly and asked to go over to
sys admin and tech support. 
	-Andy Wallis