Question about Sparc

[arkeon]

I couldn't find a forum dedicated to linux on Sparc, so please excuse me. I'm purchasing a SPARCstation 5, and I had no intent of putting a linux distro on it. But since it will not come with solaris software, I'm having second thoughts. How well does linux run on Sparc 5? How does it compare to i386? Is there a site that is dedicated to linux on Sparc platforms that I may visit? Thanks in advance.

[ashed]

I have 2 SparcStation 5's here at home, and while I confess to never loading linux on either of them, OpenBSD runs very well - noticably faster, than Solaris 2.6/7/8. I have even tried loading the box to the max with 256megs of memory and Solaris still feels like it's crawling.

Hope that helps.

[MikePark]

Thanks, I'll get one of the bsd versions most likely. Since solaris is branched off of bsd, that should make sense. BTW, how many mhz do you have on both your Sparc 5s? I purchased two 110mhz, and if I remember correctly, I heard that 110mhz on the sparc is like a pentium 200 or something.

[ashed]

Both are 170mhz, which was the last rev. of the SS5 line. The 110's are about the same as a P166, if given at least 64megs of ram.

If your chassis is the Aurora 2 then it might be possible for you to buy a replacement motherboard from some auction house and upgrade yours down the line. I know my 170's can beat a P233 with the same mem/hd configuration. The system boards for the entire line of Sparc's (4/5 specifically) are easily changed by removing 2 screws and releasing the 2 purple looking snaps towards the ports end of the PCB.

Feel free to ask questions when you run into them, these boxes have plenty of uses once you get your head around the OS's that can run on them.