[rescue] best OS for SPARCserver 10

[Dave McGuire]

On Friday, September 12, 2003, at 10:31 AM, Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
> Well, I have the "next best thing" that a 10SX... a SS15SX !  (ok..
> I made up that name everyone... to my knowledge there was actually
> no such project/prototype).  It is an SS10 chassis with a SparcEngine
> 20 mainboard (which is an upgrade of the SS10 board layout to include
> the higher mbus speed and SX video support.  Although despite having
> a manual, I can't seem to get any mbus modules to run at 50mhz mbus
> speed (according to OBP module-info command anyway).

   This reminds me of a story.  In the early 1990s, Digex was just 
spinning up.  We had *NO* money.  We were mostly running on Sun3/100 
and /200 machines (which were still pretty expensive on the used market 
in 1992), but the rackmount 12-slot VME chassis were too expensive for 
us.  The 12-slot roll-around pedestal chassis were readily available, 
though.

   The rackmount chassis was the "80 chassis"...Sun3/180, Sun3/280, etc, 
while the roll-around pedestal chassis was the "60 chassis" (Sun3/160, 
Sun3/260, etc).  We found the best way to use these affordable pedestal 
chassis in the computer room was to remove their casters and place the 
boxes on wooden shelves bolted into the racks.  We called these 
"Sun3/170" and "Sun3/270" systems...halfway between a "60 chassis" and 
an "80 chassis".

> Given similar venting, I'd say the 10 may have better cooling due to 
> having
> a third fan.

   From lots of experience with this I can say the 10 has much better 
cooling than the 20.

> Power supply more robust ???  I haven't had a failure of either a 10
> or 20 power supply (although I do have one 20 power supply that won't
> turn it's cooling fans but works the system fine otherwise... it didn't
> fail on me though, I got it that way.... but I also have an SS10 power
> supply that is simply plain dead that I also go that way).  What are
> other exeperiences with 10/20 power supplies and general reliability ?

   I've never seen an SS10 power supply fail.  I've had LOTS (maybe 
eight...probably 10% failure rate) of SS20 power supplies fail.

          -Dave

--
Dave McGuire                 "You don't have Vaseline in Canada?"
St. Petersburg, FL                     -Bill Bradford