SPARC and Linux

[LuckyTaxi]

I have this Ultra10 SPARC system with Solaris 8, but looking to installing Linux on it. Which distro would be suitable for the system?

300Mhz
256MB RAM
3.2 GB hard drive

 

[rawko]

any with a sparc ver..

 

[n0cmonkey]

Thats a nice machine. Learning Solaris could be fairly profitable. Other than that, Debian's sparc64 port is probably pretty good. Id install OpenBSD on it, but their port is still young and OpenBSD just isnt the right solution for most people

<--running Solaris 8 on his ultra 10 (or will be when the kinks are worked out...)

 

[Sunner]

Damn it!
I want a SPARC too, but they're so friggin expensive around here

I did see an Enterprise 3000 for sale for only $1500 though, but those things aren't exactly quiet

Oh and I'd throw Solaris 9 on it, if nothing else just for the learning experience.
I think Solaris 9 is a big improvement over Solaris 8.

 

[Nothinman]

Debian, it's wht I have on my Ultra1 and soon to be on my dual 300Mhz Ultra2.

 

[Acts837]

Why not Solaris 9? It's FREE! FreeBSD has Sparc varient I think.

 

[Nothinman]

Why not Solaris 9?

Because you end up installing gcc (Sun compilers cost more than a car) and compiling tons of stuff that you'd rather not pay for, or using the already compiled packages from sunfreeware. Either way you end up with tons of OSS software on an OS that gets you nothing more from the hardware than Linux or a BSD can, and on the lower end machines (like my Ultra1) Linux and the BSDs usually perform better than Solaris.

To learn Solaris is decent, but if you have the box doing something and you don't want to f' with it often just put Debian on it =)

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Acts837
Why not Solaris 9? It's FREE! FreeBSD has Sparc varient I think.

FreeBSD's sparc64 port (no sparc port I dont think) is very young.

 

[Bremen]

Yes, it runs NetBSD.