[SunRescue] SS2 usefulness (waz: 5 major manufacturers?)

[GregA.Woodswoods at weird.com]

[ On Wednesday, September 27, 2000 at 07:04:30 (-0700), Gregory Leblanc wrote: ]
> Subject: RE: [SunRescue] SS2 usefulness  (waz: 5 major manufacturers?)
>
> Shel is right, it's just you.  The only thing that SS2's can't do worth shit
> is encryption.  I've noticed that ssh'ing into my SS2 takes 2-5 times as
> long as ssh'ing into my 486-50.  It's not ram nor net connection, as the SS2
> has 64MB of ram, and the 486 has 16MB, and they're plugged into exactly the
> same ports on my network.

It's likely the fact that sparc processors didn't do integer math very
well (at least in comparison to similar Intel processors) and of course
without a Weitek PowerUp they don't do floating-point very well either.

SSH uses that GNU Multi-Precision math library a lot....

On the other hand an SS2 will slug along better under heavy general
purpose Unix load than any equivalent generation Intel-PC based system
(unless you've got a high-end EISA SCSI controller and a good driver).

My little SS2 (with 64MB RAM) blew the doors off my monster Sun-3/260
(with 128MB RAM), and it still handles all my e-mail, HTTP, NFS, etc.  I
don't run emacs on it any more, nor SSH unless I have to, and I don't
use it for software development (i.e. GCC), but those are about the only
things I've migrated off of it...

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods at acm.org>      <robohack!woods>
Planix, Inc. <woods at planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <woods at weird.com>