A Sun to start with

Hi!

I am a german PC-User (sorry about that). I have made first steps under
Linux (x86). Now I am interested in trying Solaris on a real Sun-Hardware.

But I am not quiet sure which type is best for me. Is an Ultra5 enough or is
it more reasonable to chosse an Ultra60 (perhaps 2 CPUs).

I am not willing to spend thousands of EUROs.

Every hint is useful - a comparison with PC-Hardware would help me.

Thanks!

Puetti

Big Puetti wrote:

> Hi!
>
> I am a german PC-User (sorry about that). I have made first steps under
> Linux (x86). Now I am interested in trying Solaris on a real Sun-Hardware.
>
> But I am not quiet sure which type is best for me. Is an Ultra5 enough or is
> it more reasonable to chosse an Ultra60 (perhaps 2 CPUs).
>
> I am not willing to spend thousands of EUROs.
>
> Every hint is useful - a comparison with PC-Hardware would help me.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Puetti
>
>
An Ultra 5 will certainly give you a taste of Solaris on Sun. A faster
machine will be ... faster. A machine with multiple processors and
larger cache will probably seem disproportionately faster/smoother than
might be expected from simply summing clock speeds.

I usually think of Sun clock speeds as worth about twice as much as PC
clock speeds, so a 400 MHz Ultra 5 will probably feel something like an
800 MHz PC (except for intensive computation, where the PC might look
better).

Try to configure with at least 512 MB if you can.

YMMV.

--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.

Big Puetti wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I am a german PC-User (sorry about that). I have made first steps under
> Linux (x86). Now I am interested in trying Solaris on a real Sun-Hardware.
>
> But I am not quiet sure which type is best for me. Is an Ultra5 enough or is
> it more reasonable to chosse an Ultra60 (perhaps 2 CPUs).
>
> I am not willing to spend thousands of EUROs.
>
> Every hint is useful - a comparison with PC-Hardware would help me.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Puetti
>
>

I think it depends entirely on how much you have to spend, check out
eBay to get an idea of what your money will get you. But as a general
rule, I'd get a 2-way, they are cheap enough now. Don't skimp on RAM
either, 512MB is a decent amount, big Java apps on 256MB can suck a bit.

Comparison with PC hardware pretty easy, x86 hardware dollar for dollar
is a lot faster and cheaper, but that's not why Sun kit gets bought.

Big Puetti wrote:

> Hi!
>
> I am a german PC-User (sorry about that). I have made first steps under
> Linux (x86). Now I am interested in trying Solaris on a real Sun-Hardware.
>
> But I am not quiet sure which type is best for me. Is an Ultra5 enough or is
> it more reasonable to chosse an Ultra60 (perhaps 2 CPUs).
>
> I am not willing to spend thousands of EUROs.
>
> Every hint is useful - a comparison with PC-Hardware would help me.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Puetti
>
>

IMHO forget about getting a U5, U10, SB100 or SB150 - these are poorly
built entry level workstations (you may as well stick with x86 Solaris
on a souped up P4). You mentioned the U60 - this is a good dual CPU
machine, however if PCI is not an overriding concern I'd look at the
Ultra 2. The later incarnations of this machine could take dual 400MHz
CPUs, 2048MB RAM and have twin SCA disk bays that can take any modern
1" SCA drive (I have a couple of 36GB 10K rpm dives in mine). The U2
also has a UPA slot that can take a Creator 3D, or Eilte 3D framebuffer
(video card).

The U2 is basically the same as a U60 with the exception that SBus
expansion cards are much cheaper to buy on eBay than their PCI
equivalents. The U2 has 4 SBus expansion slots.

You can find fully speced U2s selling for aroung $500 US - and I am sure
that you would able to source one in Germany without too many difficulties.

HTH,
AT

Andrew Tyson wrote:

> You can find fully speced U2s selling for aroung $500 US - and I am sure
> that you would able to source one in Germany without too many difficulties.

sbus coming close to being EOL'd (in the OS)...do you really think a u2
is a really good option?

Bruno Saverio Delbono wrote:

> sbus coming close to being EOL'd (in the OS)...do you really think a u2
> is a really good option?

The OP specified a 'sun to start with' for personal use - rather than a
production host that is going to be around for a long time. In any case
I suspect that S8 & S9 are going to be the predominant variants for the
next couple of years (and having just done a quick search of
docs.sun.com the S10 collection alludes to SBus under the SunVTS 6.0
section).

IMHO the U2 offers excellent value for money ... just my ten cents.

AT

Bruno Saverio Delbono <> wrote:
> sbus coming close to being EOL'd (in the OS)...do you really think a u2
> is a really good option?

Some hardware containing the SBus cards is still supported for almost
another 4 years - I can't see OS support disappearing for it anytime
soon.

Scott

On Friday 03 September 2004 11:03 am in comp.sys.sun.hardware Scott Howard
wrote:

> Bruno Saverio Delbono <> wrote:
>> sbus coming close to being EOL'd (in the OS)...do you really think a u2
>> is a really good option?
>
> Some hardware containing the SBus cards is still supported for almost
> another 4 years - I can't see OS support disappearing for it anytime
> soon.

Indeed, one can imagine the howls of protest from all of
the big financial institutions with E10k systems.
Shafting your biggest shareholders would be a bad idea.

--
My real address is crn (at) netunix (dot) com
WARNING all messages containing attachments or html will be silently
deleted. Send only plain text.

> > Some hardware containing the SBus cards is still supported for almost
> > another 4 years - I can't see OS support disappearing for it anytime
> > soon.
>
> Indeed, one can imagine the howls of protest from all of
> the big financial institutions with E10k systems.
> Shafting your biggest shareholders would be a bad idea.

Assets frozen due to E10k and E4XX00 systems no longer being supported...

I can see it now.

--
Steven Hill

WANTED: Dead or Alive -- Schrodeinger's Cat

Steven Hill wrote:

> Assets frozen due to E10k and E4XX00 systems no longer being supported...

Aye. We have a E4500 and it will be supported until 2007. However, Sun's
EOL list can be quite scary when you look at it.