[SPARCbook] Re: SparkBook Woes

[Chris Powell]

Patrick McAleavey wrote:

> Just some follow up...we were using our 3GXs to teach the Unix version of 
> our software. We had five (5) units that were pretty much steady on the 
> road. I had to use the Sun Solaris 7 CDs because my predecessor had hidden 
> the Tadpole disks away and nobody knew where...I found them after about six 
> months. So for that time period the units ran on the straight Sun software. 
> Our road classes usually run a week at a time so the laptops would be on 24 
> hours a day for that time period. Never ran into any overheating 
> problems...although I have heard rumors about that issue. Actually my 
> biggest problem was getting the instructors to shut down the machines 
> properly (and students changing the root password...arrrghh).

I didn't think stock Sun Solaris 7 contained Tadpole drivers for video
and PCMCIA slots (perhaps other things too). Solaris 2.6 definitely
does not - an installation from the Sun Solaris 2.6 CD subsequently
requires the Tadpole drivers. Without the drivers, video is restricted
to console only (no X).

The overheating issue may be due to older Solaris versions not having
power management (like disc spin-down), this is now in stock Solaris.
I'm not certain about this though (anyone?).


ChrisP.