[rescue] My new UltraSparc 5's, also my first Sun stations

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Thu, 2 Jun 2005, Paul Mantz wrote:

>  Unfortunately, I haven't been keeping track of what works well for
> old 64-bit processors nowdays.  My first instinct was slackware, but
> apparently their support for 64-bit processors suck.  Would gentoo be
> worth it for such an old computer, or can anyone testify reliability
> for any other distro?  I generally want to stay away from redhat and
> its derivatives because I want to tinker around with my box.

OpenBSD supports the U5/U10 systems very well.

>  Also, I know nothing about the kind of wonky keyboard connection
> that it seems to be employing.

It's the standard Sun serial keyboard connector.  Most devices that
support it just call it a "Sun keyboard connector".  I believe it's just
a 4800baud serial link with one outbound channel (keyboard) and two
inbound channels (keyboard and mouse).

> What is that standard called, and are there KVMs readily available
> for it?

KVM?  Kernel virtual memory?  If you're referring to those keyboard
sharing abominations that PCs seem to require, yes, there are those for
Suns, but generally they're hard to find and expensive, as Suns just
don't need them.  If you need occasional console access, you can use
serial port A.  If you want to use it as a workstation, typically,
there's no call for it.

-- 
Jonathan Patschke  ) "It's alright for someone to sleep past noon every
Elgin, TX         (   once in a while.  That's what it means to be a
USA                )  free human being."       --Roger Smith, The Big O