[rescue] [OT?] Linux on a SS2

[Meelis Roos]

> It may just be a Linux thing (but I *think* it applies to the *BSD's as
> well), but I think the only thing that'll run well on a SS5/170 is
> Solaris, due to Fujitsu doing something strange with their Sun4m
> implementation.  I had Debian running on a 170 for a while, and was
> getting a kernel panic about once a day.  When I replaced the machine
> with a 85 (or maybe 70), it ran rock-solid.  A friend of mine has tried
> installing Debian (and Redhat SPARC) on some other 170s, and hasn't
> ever gotten it to install successfully.

I did my install on SS5/70 so I can't comment on the install but
afterwards I got a quite loaded SS5/170 for RAM price only and put the
disk with Debian into it. I don't run it regularly, only about 1 day a
week for testing some stuff on 32-bit sparc. It runs current Debian
unstable and a current 2.4 kernel. It has crashed once in 3 months
(again, running it about 1 day a week) so I can't say it's 100% stable
but it is usable for my usage patterns. I also test new kernels and do
apt-get dist-upgrade every time I turn it on to help test debian and
sparc32 kernel so it has got some load too in addition to small
portability tests that also involve compilation.

SS5/70 ran rock solid here too.

-- 
Meelis Roos (mroos at linux.ee)