[SunRescue] Viable OS for SS20

[Gregory Leblanc]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: sparcy at proxy.goblin.cx [mailto:sparcy at proxy.goblin.cx]
> Sent: Sunday, March 12, 2000 3:33 AM
> To: rescue at sunhelp.org
> Subject: Re: [SunRescue] Viable OS for SS20
> 
> Hi Greg,
> 
> > Right now I've got my choice of RH6.1 or Solaris7 for my 
> SS20.  Solaris7 is
> > MUCH MUCH MUCH faster than RH, mostly because of disk, I 
> think.  (that is, I
> > know the disk is much better under Solaris, and I think 
> that's most of the
> > speed difference).  OpenBSD and NetBSD don't support SMP, 
> so that makes them
> > essentially useless to me; I have 2 40MHz cpus.  Solaris8 
> is out of the
> > question, I'm NOT paying $75 for a couple of CDs.  My main 
> reason for
> > wanting to use Linux over Solaris was that it has decent 
> console support,
> > I.E. I don't have to run X to be able to get a reasonable 
> number of lines on
> > the screen.  Have I overlooked any OSes?  If not, is there 
> any way to get
> > Solaris to have a decent text-mode console?
> > 	Greg
> 
> The problem is that scsi support with the current kernels 
> 2.2.* is being
> overhauled, linux is know for it's excellent IDE support, 
> *BSD is known
> for it's excellent SCSI support (and crappy IDE support). 
> Linux is catching
> up though and better SCSI kernel support is being added now. 
> I'd advise to
> try out a development kernel since these already have new 
> SCSI code in them
> and they might make quite a difference. Try a 2.3.51 (the latest) for
> example and see if that helps.

I just talked with David Miller about this on the Sparclinux list.
Apparently, the code isn't working on 32-bit SPARCs yet, but all of the
hooks are in place.  You can probably find the archives online; the message
went though the list at about 10:30.  So, the code is there, it's just not
used by the 32-bit drivers.  :-/  Kinda makes me wish I'd gone for an
Ultra-1.  Kinda.
	Greg