[SunRescue] Solaris 8

[Brian McCloskey]

if anything, the 64 bit kernel for linux should be faster and more reliable 
than the 32 bit sparc linux kernel. as i mentioned, sun wrote the 64 bit 
kernel and it has been stable for some time. the only people i personally 
know of who are running linux on ultrasparc hardware in a production 
environment are running the 64 bit kernel and have had 0 issues with it as 
such.

while you mention that all of the user space software is 32 bit, if you are 
referring to open source software, gcc still will not build a 64 bit binary 
for ultrasparc as far as i know, but if you are running solaris and have the 
sun cc compiler, you can compile any of the open source software for your 
platform as a 64 bit binary.

i believe that the memory model in solaris 7 and 8 has the potential to be a 
better system than linux, but solaris will require more hardware before it 
is able to perform at its best than linux will, and you do not have the 
ability to tune your kernel (e.g. rebuild) the way you do in linux. also, 
there is some sun hardware (not much, but some) that is not yet supported 
under linux. most of this unsupported software on the ultrasparc systems 
falls in to the realm of an assortment of sound chipsets on some 
workstations, and the parallel ports on a couple machines. usually not a big 
deal, but it might behoove you to check out red hat's supported sun hardware 
since they use the 64 ultrasparc kernel in their 6.2 distribution.

-wu


>From: "John F. Davis" <davis at skink.net>
>Reply-To: rescue at sunhelp.org
>To: rescue at sunhelp.org
>Subject: Re: [SunRescue] Solaris 8
>Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2000 12:00:04 -0500
>
>On Mon, Sep 11, 2000 at 04:42:56PM +0000, Brian McCloskey wrote:
> > thats kind of an arbitrary question and not easy to answer without 
>defining
> > some kind of metric.
>
>As a general OS goes, which will be faster, solaris or linux.
>
> >
> > also, what are you referring to as the "working free kernels"? if you 
>mean
> > linux, the ultraSPARC kernel is most definitely 64bit and was written by
> > sun. i believe the bsd kernel for ultraSPARC is also 64bit. if you're
> > talking about intel, its all 32bit obviously.
>
>From what I understand, the sparc64 port is still not ready for prime time.
>Whereas the 32-bit port works like a champ. Furthermore, all of userspace 
>code
>in Linux/BSD is 32 bits.  I don't know if that is the case or not in
>Solaris.
>
>So given a faster kernel, but the same 32 apps will Solaris apps run faster
>than the comparable linux apps.  Or, to put it bluntly, will Staroffice run
>faster on a Solaris Ultra than a Linux Ultra?   Will the JVM run faster?
>etc.
>
>I'm sorry if I was unclear.  I'm getting a new Ultra and I want to know if
>it would be better to run Solaris or stick with Linux.  Up to now, I have
>only run Linux or BSD on all my Sparc boxes. But, then again, I've never
>owned a new Sparc box.  All my experience has been with 5's, 10's, and
>LX's.
>
>John
>
> >
> > -wu
> >
> >
> > >From: "John F. Davis" <davis at skink.net>
> > >Reply-To: rescue at sunhelp.org
> > >To: rescue at sunhelp.org
> > >Subject: Re: [SunRescue] Solaris 8
> > >Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2000 07:20:08 -0500
> > >
> > >Hello,
> > >
> > >How much faster does solaris 8 run than Linux/FreeBSD?  I understand
> > >that only the kernel is 64bits in Solaris and the working free kernels
> > >are 32bit.
> > >
> > >John
> > >
> > >On Mon, Sep 11, 2000 at 12:58:45AM -0400, Ken Hansen wrote:
> > > > Not generally available, and the x86 distribution, if it is anything
> > >like
> > > > SPARC, is more than 1 CD.
> > > > Even more if you include any other shipping utilities/tools...
> > > >
> > > > Sorry for the bad news...
> > > >
> > > > Ken
> > > >
> > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > From: "Clay Mellender" <claym at mellender.org>
> > > > To: <rescue at sunhelp.org>
> > > > Sent: Monday, September 11, 2000 12:59 AM
> > > > Subject: [SunRescue] Solaris 8
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > Anybody know where I can download an .iso Image of solaris 8 x86?  
>I
> > > > filled
> > > > > out the binary license agreement, but as I am unemployed at the 
>moment
> > >I
> > > > can
> > > > > not easily afford the 80 bucks for the media.
> > > > >
> > > > > TIA
> > > > >
> > > > > Clay Mellender
> > > > >
> > > > > _______________________________________________
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> > > > > http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
> > > >
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> > >http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
> >
> > 
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