[rescue] best OS for SPARCserver 10

Mike Nicewonger twmaster at twmaster.com
Thu Sep 11 23:42:03 CDT 2003


As has been pointed out either NetBSD or OpenBSD would be the best operating
system choice for your nice vintage SS10. [0] If you have more than one CPU
then your best choice is NetBSD, or to remove one CPU to use OpenBSD. I
would avoid Solaris on that machine. [1]

You should be fine with 128 MB of memory. You may however run into booting
problems if you try to use an Apple CD-ROM. The Sun CD-ROM FAQ is your
friend.

If you boot from Floppy you should be OK.

HTH!

Mike N

[0] Possibly the very finest of all the 4m machines IMHO.

[1] Not saying Solaris in it's current form is bad. Just is too much
overhead for the good ole' SS10


----- Original Message -----
From: "simeon johnston" <simeonuj at eetc.com>
To: <rescue at sunhelp.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2003 11:35 PM
Subject: [rescue] best OS for SPARCserver 10


> I've got a SPARCserver 10.
> 128MB ram.
> 2x 1.8GB HD.  I'll probably upgrade one of them to a 10GB.  Possibly
> upgrade both.
> Video card (Don't know what kind it is) w/ 13w3->DB15 adapter.
> I also have a few old Apple SCSI CDROM drives that should work great
> for booting it.  That or the built-in floppy.
>
> I want to use it for a minimal Appletalk/Samba fileserver (5 users max
> at any given time.  1 user most of the time if that) as well as OpenAFP
> (just to test it out.  Play around a little).
> FrontBase (SQL database).
> PostgreSQL
> Possibly CVS.
> Some remote X stuff.
> Burning CD's (If possible).
> Playing some musice if I can find the adapter for the audio.  What is
> that connector?
>
> This is a machine I traded Pete L. Wargo for a Quadra 840AV (where is
> he anyway?  Haven't seen him for a LONG time).
> I wanted to load Solaris on it since it should handle all of the above
> nicely.  I thought that you could download the OS free from Sun (at
> least a version of it) but couldn't really find anything on there sight
> (I was very confused with the download section).
> It's currently running Debian quite well, but I have enough Linux boxes
> at work to admin.  I want to try something different.  Maybe a *BSD.
> I also found a box for Solaris Server 2.5.1.  It's pretty old.  I think
> it came with the other Sparc 10 at work.  That or the Sparc 5 (both
> from Marner.  Not Sun cases.  There pretty ugly).  I'd rather have
> something newer.
>
> sim
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