What sparcs are people running?

cooldje · n00b Joined: 12 Oct 2004 Posts: 34 Location: FRANCE

Hi !

I have given back a sun the "sparc" of life with Gentoo and running for one year !

System uname: 2.4.31-sparc sparc64 sun4u
Dual-UltraSparcIIi @400Mhz
2Gb RAM
1x9Gb SCSI

We use it @work for webdev. (Apache2/Mysql/PHP5/XML)

Never had a problem with it, it's great !, the only reboot are to update the kernel !

sorry for my poor english :p

Question : Is there any raid hardware support on this machine ?

Long life to Gentoo

Dr Evil · n00b Joined: 25 Jan 2004 Posts: 41

I may be in this thread from earlier, don't remember.

Anyway, in the process of doing a new build on an Ultra 10. Had one before, but I decided I wanted to rebuild it for the hell of it.

Anyway, about all I remember is it has 256 MB of RAM (going to be increased), and runs a 3xx MHz processor (don't remember the exact number), with a 20 GB HD.

Looking to get another Sparc box of some sort, something faster hopefully, but it's on hold until I get my raise. Was thinking of doing something like an E250, but I have decided I'd rather have a dual proc workstation instead.

jaxbrie · n00b Joined: 18 May 2005 Posts: 4

chris7170 · n00b Joined: 24 Sep 2005 Posts: 1

First contact ever with Gentoo was on my Sparky...
SparcStation 20, 4xHypersparc 125 MHz, 256 MB RAM, can´t remember the HD specs just now, it´s been a while i had it booted. I was searching for an alternative to Solaris on this box (got it from eBay to experiment with non-x86 hardware) and i was going crazy finding a working Linux distro. All i could find where some old, no-longer-maintained distribution of SuSE an some other until i found Gentoo. As i said, my first contact with Gentoo, so it took some time to get the box up and running, but i finaly managed to do so and it still works.

Then came the Ultra2: 2x300 MHz, 768 MB RAM, 2x9.1 GB HD. Somewhat faster :-)

than old Sparky, so i first gave Solaris a try. But it was to slow for me, so now it hs a dual boot Solaris/Gentoo.

Diezel · Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2005 8:51 pm Post subject:

Last post in this thread was when I got my SparcStation 5. Wich sadly had to go Debian, due to 1Gb harddrive. I just got my Ultra5 last week wich is now happily running Gentoo.
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riposte · n00b Joined: 17 Nov 2003 Posts: 69 Location: New Zealand

Ive had an Ultra 5 with 440mhz cpu 1gb ram and 2x 20gb ide hard-drives running gentoo web/mail/ftp/svn and some other stuff for quite a while now.
Just purchased a sun ultra wide scsi multipack with 6x9gb 10k scsi drives in it. Ive got a couple of scsi pci cards that should work ok but I was wondering whether it would be worth setting it up as a raid array (software or otherwise) - any opinions/advice on this??

IanBallantyne · n00b Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 52 Location: Austria

I've got one Blade 100, 500MHz Sparc IIi, 640Mb RAM, 1x15Gb, 1x30Gb HDD, soon to be changed to a raid-1 configuration. Thats my personal machine.

I'm now setting up an Ultra 10 which has 512Mb RAM, 2x20Gb HDD's.

The setup process works well for doing raid-1 with the initial install, however there is a hole in the docs for doing LVM on raid-1 with the initial install. I especially want to do an install using EVMS to do a raid-1 with dynamic volume resizing (like LVM) with the initial install, however I find no docs what do ever in this direction.

I'm still mainly using my AMD machines because I can put more and bigger hard drives in there. One machine has 800Gb usable storage, 400Gb of which is raid-1 (4x200Gb HDD's in raid). Doing that in the Blade 100 isn't possible

Maybe one day a Blade 1000 will come my way cheaply....

penquissciguy · n00b Joined: 28 Feb 2004 Posts: 19

I was recently given an Ultra 10 with 440 Mhz proc and 256 MB of RAM and a E250 (what a BEAST!) with 2x??? MHz procs and ??? MB RAM. I've booted the U10 with the 2005.1 Sparc MBD and all seems well, aside from a cooling fan with failing bearings. I haven't yet booted the E250, as I don't have a key to switch it on yet and it's headless. My friend who rescued these from certain cannibalism is still looking for the key, but I'm sure I can figure something out if it doesn't show up.

Ken

IanBallantyne · n00b Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 52 Location: Austria

Speaking of such machines, I tried to install gentoo on a V440 (4 Sparc IIIi's, 16Gb RAM, 4x73Gb scsi drives, 2xqlogic FC cards for a 27Tb storage array), but the installation (boot from cd actually) aborted quite early on before I even got a shell prompt. Can't remember the exact reason though because the try was about 6 months ago, and I needed to get Solaris 10 onto the machine.

speak_see_hear · Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2005 3:32 pm Post subject:

I currently have 3 sparcs:
Ultra10, Sparc IIi 440Mhz, 1G Ram, 40G Hdd
2xUltra60, 2xSparcIIi 440Mhz, 1G Ram, 9G Hdd

I plan to upgrade the U60 boxes in the very near future.
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tshrub · n00b Joined: 10 May 2005 Posts: 6 Location: Calgary, AB

My current equipment:

1 x u10 = USparcIIi 440Mhz, 512 ram, 40GB Hd
1 x u60 = Dual USparcII 300Mhz, 512 ram, 2 x 9GB Hd
2 x 450 =
1 = Dual UsparcII 400Mhz, 2GB ram, 1 x 18Gb Hd (got more coming)
1 = Quad UsparcII 300Mhz, 1GB ram, 1 x 18Gb Hd (got more coming)

freshy98 · Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 7:23 am Post subject:

Little update since the last post...

Neverwinter: SparcStation 10, dual 50MHz/1MB cache, 224MB RAM, 2*2GB drives, second NIC, headless. Runs as my backup firewall/router.
Electron: Ultra 1, 167MHz/512KB cache, 256MB RAM, 4,5GB and 2,1GB drives, headless. Runs as my WWW, DHCP, FTP, TFTP, NFS server.
Ren: (formally known as Gersdorffite) Netra T1, 500MHz/256KB cache, 512MB RAM, 2x18GB 10K drives. WWW, FTP, NTP, RSYNC, CVS/GIT wannabe.
Stimpy: Netra T1, 500MHz/256KB cache, 512MB RAM, 2x18GB 10K drives, 2x36GB 10K drives. DHCP, TFTP, NFS, SAMBA wannabe.
Quazar: Blade 100, 500MHz/???KB cach (think it's 512KB), 9.1GB 10K drive (SCSI). Secondary machine next to my main PC. FOr some simple web browsing/IM/IRC.

Last three machines need to be installed. Ren needs to be re-installed. Electron will be promoted to Nagios machine once Ren & Stimpy are done.
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coutts99 · Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2005 4:19 pm Post subject:

Just bid for this on Ebay - Sun Netra T105 Ultra Sparc IIi 440Mhz 512MB Ram

I have zero experience with Sun hardware just felt like something different to play with.

What kind of upgrades can I put in this?

Intruder · Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 12:08 am Post subject:

I have 3 SPARC :
- one Ultra 10 (440mhz,256Mo, 18Gb SCSI HD), runing gentoo 2.4 kernel
- one Ultra 5 (270mhz,128Mo,9Gb IDE HD), runing debian 2.4 kernel
- one Ultra1 (170mhz,64Mo,2Gb SCSI HD) runing nothing

Anybody have a kernel config file to migrate my ultra 5/10 to 2.6 kernel? Thanks
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sblaineyuk · n00b Joined: 27 Oct 2005 Posts: 34

Got a very good deal on a Netra t1125 (same board as an Ultra 60):
- 2x440mhz
- 1024mb RAM
- 1x9GB, 1x18GB
- Second Ethernet card
- and some sort of 4-way multiport serial card (with rj-style jacks)

And it goes like the clappers

_markd · n00b Joined: 03 Jan 2004 Posts: 30 Location: Austria

Got one SPARC machine so far (more to come when the central information service of my University upgrades some

)

This is the configuration of my current box:
Ultra Enterprise 2
2 x UltraSPARC II 296 MHz
1.5 GB RAM
2 x HappyMeal Ethernet
1 x Fujitsu 9.1 GB SCSI Disk
1 x Diskarray attached (16x8GB ~ 120GB RAID5)
1 x Sun SOC
1 x Creator graphics
1 x 21 inch Sun CRT attached

Running gentoo-sources-2.6.13
This machine serves as mailserver on the external interface and samba fileserver on the internal hme. The 21 inch monitor is a waste for this purpose, but as I do not have a console device, it's the only way to access the machine when ethernet goes down.
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yogsothoth · n00b Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 7

You gotta love the sparcs:

my current collection, running a mixture of debian, gentoo, openbsd, netbsd and solaris:

Sun Ultra 1E
Sun Sparcstation 20 w/ a 150 mhz Ross HyperSparc Cpu
Sun Sparcstation 20 /w 2 180 mhz Ross HyperSparc Cpus
Sun Netra T1 105 w/ Sun d130 external array
Sun Sunfire v100
Sun Sparcstation Voyager
Sun Javastation (Krups)
Sun Sparcstation IPC (2 of these)
Sun Sparcstation LX
Sun Sparcengine Ultra Axi
Sun Sparcengine Ultra Axe
Tadpole Sparcbook 3gx (2 of these)
Tadpole Sparcbook 2 currently broken

Tadpole/RDI Ultrabook 1
Tatung Sparcengine AXDP motherboard(Oem sparc board w/ ATX connector, still waiting for parts on this one)

luked · n00b Joined: 17 Sep 2002 Posts: 19

Sun Blade 1000 Workstation
2*Ultrasparc III 750MHz
Expert3D-Lite video card (no linux support besides slow b&w text console via prom))
1Gb RAM

# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Sun Microsystems Computer Corp. Schizo PCI Bus Module
00:04.0 SCSI storage controller: QLogic Corp. QLA2200 64-bit Fibre Channel Adapter (rev 05)
0001:00:00.0 Host bridge: Sun Microsystems Computer Corp. Schizo PCI Bus Module
0001:00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Intergraph Corporation Sun Expert3D-Lite Graphics Accelerator
0001:00:05.0 Bridge: Sun Microsystems Computer Corp. RIO EBUS (rev 01)
0001:00:05.1 Ethernet controller: Sun Microsystems Computer Corp. RIO GEM (rev 01)
0001:00:05.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Sun Microsystems Computer Corp. RIO 1394 (rev 01)
0001:00:05.3 USB Controller: Sun Microsystems Computer Corp. RIO USB (rev 01)
0001:00:06.0 SCSI storage controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic 53c875 (rev 37)
0001:00:06.1 SCSI storage controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic 53c875 (rev 37)

davidfowler2000 · Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2005 8:25 pm Post subject:

Here's my nice wee sparc box:

System - Sun Ultra 60
CPU - 2 x 450 w/4MB Cache each
RAM - 2 GB
HDD - 2 x 18GB
Frame Buffer - Creator3D
Kernel - 2.4.something - latest at time of writing this

Did have an Ultra 5 with a 400 chip but the cpu faulty and was giving me network nightmares so i thought an upgrade was in order. Not bad for a plain old internet browser eh?

BillyBoy · Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2005 7:13 pm Post subject:

Parts from 2 U2's gives me:

Ultra2
CPU - 2 x 200MHz UltraSPARC I
RAM - 640MB
DISK - 18, 18, 18 in external 6pack

Ultra2
CPU - 2 x 168MHz UltraSPARC I
RAM - none
DISK - whining 2GB internal that won't spin up (burial time)

I think they both have Creator cards in them.

The 2.4 kernel installed without a hitch from the Universal CD. But I cannot emerge the kernel because of a "missing keyword" error. It doesn't tell me which keyword is missing so I'm looking for it. If anyone finds my keyword, please send it my way. I don't have any modules yet, so it's not a lot of fun right now. :wink:

cazort · Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2005 7:34 pm Post subject:

I have a whole ton of sparc Ultra 10's: 256MB RAM, 9GB HD (too small), 400 mhz (plenty fast).

:-)

I have been thinking of getting bigger HD's for them...
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Babel · n00b Joined: 03 Nov 2003 Posts: 12 Location: Portland, OR

I got myself an Ultra 10 over Christmas, 440 mhz, 512 mb ram, ATI framebuffer. Presently it has a 20 gig disk in it. I've been plesantly surprised that with X, xfce, gaim, conky, firefox, a handful of xterms, and a build going that it regularly runs at half or less ram usage and hasn't touched swap. I was told that X would be a bad idea on it but clearly that person didn't know what they were talking about as it runs perfectly fine for me. When I have some spare cash to throw at it I'm thinking of maxing out the ram with another 512 and getting some larger disks. Does anyone offhand know how large of a drive the Ultra 10s can hold? I've got the latest bootprom which I believe is 3.31.

tiketti · n00b Joined: 29 Apr 2003 Posts: 32 Location: Finland

I think I haven't replied to this one yet... Anyway, my sparcs are:

U10, 440MHz CPU / 768M RAM / 9G IDE HDD
- Mostly playing a role as a very low traffic www-server (apache, mysql & php)

U10, 440MHz CPU / 512M RAM / 60G IDE HDD
-Not really doing anything yet, just finished intalling gentoo on this one once again

SB1000, Dual 900MHz CPUs / 4G RAM / 18G SCSI HDD / PGX64
-My playgroud

just for fun, testing, learning, screwing things up, etc... but I'm loving it :mrgreen:

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Gentoo on x86, sparc, alpha, amd64, embedded

gentonix · n00b Joined: 29 May 2003 Posts: 35

geforce · l33t Joined: 29 Dec 2003 Posts: 654 Location: Canada

SunFire V880

With All possibles modules to add

8x 900 Mhz Sparc
16 GB ram
450 GB SCSI disk

1x (or 2?) optical fiber cards

2 gigabytes network cards

Solaris 9

With ~150 SunRay terminals connected to it

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