[rescue] My new UltraSparc 5's, also my first Sun stations

[velociraptor]

On 6/2/05, Paul Mantz <angelixd at gmail.com> wrote:
>   Unfortunately, I haven't been keeping track of what works well for
> old 64-bit processors nowdays.  My first instinct was slackware, but
> apparently their support for 64-bit processors suck.  Would gentoo be
> worth it for such an old computer, or can anyone testify reliability
> for any other distro?  I generally want to stay away from redhat and
> its derivatives because I want to tinker around with my box.

I am using gentoo on my Sun Blade 100.  I tried a couple of other
things (*BSDs, which were my first choice), but there are some
little gotchas with various distros with hardware that I couldn't
work around (work box, not sinking $ into it).

I know a lot of folks have concerns about Gentoo's stability, but
I have not had issues with it.  Of course, I am running in a very
trim state--no gnome or kde (though some of the underpinnings
are installed for using other software).  I've even unmasked quite
a number of little things (mostly for X) that are masked for sparc,
but have not had any problems with them.

Mind you, I only websync every couple of months, though.

I'd take a little time and do some research if you chose a *BSD
distro, just to save yourself some frustration in case there are
little known hardware "gotchas" with your particular box's config.
Ditto for Linux.  Although it's kinda difficult to find them unless
you have error messages--the kind you only get when you are
installing. ;-)

As for the keyboard/mouse issue, I took the advice of a lister
and am running synergys (as recommended in another reply
as well).  I have two monitors side-by-side, one attached to
each box, then use the sparc (USB type) keyboard & mouse.
It works great.

You might also consider using VNC (too slow for me) or
making one of the two Suns headless and just use X to
display back xterms, browsers, etc. from the other.  Or if
you have a PC w/Windows, install Cygwin with X.org on
it.  (it's a lot more stable and fast than XFree in my
experience).  I guess it all boils down to, which box has
the largest amount of RAM/best video in chosing which
to run the XWindows session.

Have fun!
=Nadine=