[V440] Firmware update, OS choice and ALOM password

[Bubba]

Greetings,

I got V440 and have several questions:

- as far as I saw, the easiest and most flexible OS would still be
Solaris, since both OpenBSD and Debian lacked some functionality. Both
Debian and OBSD had problems with partitioning and boot options, while
Debian couldn't recognize two additional Quad Gigabit cards and required
drivers that were not available. Thus, I figured it would be safest to try
with Solaris - as machine has 2x 1.2 GHz Sparcs and 4GB RAM, would latest
Solaris 10 work fine (I don't require GUI; compiler sets and web/DB
related applications will suffice, and I am aware they are available and
work properly (but not necessarily to fast) on Slowaris. :)

- the machine was taken from a financial institution and lacked any DASD,
but I also didn't get any administration documentation. IOW - when I bump
into ALOM's login part, I have no clue how to log in. Apparently, while
searching through the Net, "admin" should be username and last 8 *digits*
of V440's serial number would make a password. Although I assume someone
tampered with those credentials, my serial number is alphanumeric, so this
"digit" part largely makes me doubt in that information. Nevertheless, I
also read it is possible to reset ALOM credentials via Solaris. Since I
can boot (>ok prompt appears and allows booting from cdrom and disks), is
this doable?

- lastly, my ROM version is OpenBoot 4.22.33 and there seems to be an
upgrade. It also seems Oracle has put much effort to make my life
miserable and provided numerous steps in order to obtain one with
requirements I don't understand how to comply to. They require "The
Customer Support Identifier (or CSI) is the identifier used for the
support contract for between you and Oracle Support. You may request
access to one or more, typically you enter a CSI of about 8 digits in
length." and filling out contact forms... All in all, I wonder, since I
cannot find change log and would like to upgrade machine with two
additional CPU's with 8GB RAM, is it worth additional trouble
and exploration? What is the procedure of upgrading OpenBoot anyway? Can
it be obtained via 3rd party, in terms of being able to download it
somewhere else?

TIA!


--
"If you lie to the compiler,
it will get its revenge."
Henry Spencer
2.718281828459045235360287471352662497757247093699959574966967627.com

[Doug McIntyre]

Bubba <nick...@banelli.biz.invalid> writes:
>I got V440 and have several questions:

>- as far as I saw, the easiest and most flexible OS would still be

>Solaris, since both OpenBSD and Debian lacked some functionality...

Definately. Those other two choices stopped development altogether for
some point in time. I don't know know if they are currently active or not.
But yes, Solaris is definately the only thing that would work well on
that hardware.

>work properly (but not necessarily to fast) on Slowaris. :)

Slowaris is what Linux kids claimed until they had to implement all
the normal locking and control of a modern kernel (instead of flying
loose and carefree). I find Solaris to be much faster on *equivilent*
hardware than Linux systems..

>into ALOM's login part, I have no clue how to log in. Apparently, while
>searching through the Net, "admin" should be username and last 8 *digits*
>of V440's serial number would make a password.

Hmm, I don't remember that being correct. But either way, just reset
it once you have Solaris running. I wouldn't put too much work into
getting into ALOM now if you can boot cdrom. And then you just reset
it later to use it.

>.. read it is possible to reset ALOM credentials via Solaris. Since I

>can boot (>ok prompt appears and allows booting from cdrom and disks), is
>this doable?

Sure sounds like it. Once I had a few used systems that couldn't boot
dvd/cdrom and then I had to move a preinstalled system harddisk over
from another of the same class and get in that way..

>- lastly, my ROM version is OpenBoot 4.22.33 and there seems to be an
>upgrade. It also seems Oracle has put much effort to make my life
>miserable and provided numerous steps in order to obtain one with
>requirements I don't understand how to comply to.

Its fairly simple. Get the system up on maintenance for something
starting around $1200/yr per socket.

Since I'm guessing that it isn't worth that for you, stay with the
OpenBoot you have. OpenBoot upgrades are boring, the fixes are
normally pretty esoteric. The only "feature" I've seen in fairly
recent Openboot is WANBoot, but I don't know if yours is new enough or
not. Its not like you spend more than 0.00001% of the time ever messing
in OpenBoot. Its about as exciting as updating your boot blocks.

The procedure to do it normally is just installing a patch in Solaris.
Somebody may or may not have the specific patch you need online, but I
wouldn't bother searching for it.

[Bubba]

Doug McIntyre's log on stardate 06 stu 2011

>>- as far as I saw, the easiest and most flexible OS would still be
>>Solaris, since both OpenBSD and Debian lacked some functionality...
> Definately. Those other two choices stopped development altogether
> for some point in time. I don't know know if they are currently
> active or not. But yes, Solaris is definately the only thing that
> would work well on that hardware.

I notticed that, on kinda harder way. :)

>>work properly (but not necessarily to fast) on Slowaris. :)
> Slowaris is what Linux kids claimed until they had to implement all
> the normal locking and control of a modern kernel (instead of flying
> loose and carefree). I find Solaris to be much faster on *equivilent*
> hardware than Linux systems..

Is that correct, for example, in respect of gcc, web performance and
simmilar things?

>>into ALOM's login part, I have no clue how to log in. Apparently,
>>while searching through the Net, "admin" should be username and last
>>8 *digits* of V440's serial number would make a password.
> Hmm, I don't remember that being correct. But either way, just reset
> it once you have Solaris running. I wouldn't put too much work into
> getting into ALOM now if you can boot cdrom. And then you just reset
> it later to use it.

I was afraid there might be something important in ALOM that would
prevent me from accessing OS or something like that.

As it appears, I should be good to go to fully functional Solaris.

One more thing - there are two drives that came with machine, loaded
with Solaris. Now when I star the installation procedure, I am offered
an upgrade or "initialization" (I might be wrong, but something like
that). Since I only skimmed through the instalation procedure and
haven't reall started it yet, is it possible to wipe/zero-fill/LLF SCSI
drives from the console, just to avoid any potential fuss with the
instalation?

> Sure sounds like it. Once I had a few used systems that couldn't boot
> dvd/cdrom and then I had to move a preinstalled system harddisk over
> from another of the same class and get in that way..

Since machine came from financial institution, I was affraid it might
have some thorougher security roles. Lucky me, however, I was wrong...
:)

>>- lastly, my ROM version is OpenBoot 4.22.33 and there seems to be an
>>upgrade. It also seems Oracle has put much effort to make my life
>>miserable and provided numerous steps in order to obtain one with
>>requirements I don't understand how to comply to.
> Its fairly simple. Get the system up on maintenance for something
> starting around $1200/yr per socket.

Hehe... ;)

> Since I'm guessing that it isn't worth that for you, stay with the
> OpenBoot you have. OpenBoot upgrades are boring, the fixes are
> normally pretty esoteric. The only "feature" I've seen in fairly
> recent Openboot is WANBoot, but I don't know if yours is new enough
> or not. Its not like you spend more than 0.00001% of the time ever
> messing in OpenBoot. Its about as exciting as updating your boot
> blocks.

My wories were regarding potential incompatibility with additional
hardware (more RAM, new CPU cards, etc.); so, it's not worth it?

> The procedure to do it normally is just installing a patch in
> Solaris. Somebody may or may not have the specific patch you need
> online, but I wouldn't bother searching for it.

It's not like I haven't tried, but I'll just skip it now. :)

Thank you for your feedback.

BTW, JFTR, I measured power consumption of V440:

(ATTN: may wrap)
http://2.718281828459045235360287471352662497757247093699959574966967627.com/Sun-V440-Power-Consumption.html

[DoN. Nichols]

On 2011-11-06, Bubba <nick...@banelli.biz.invalid> wrote:
> Doug McIntyre's log on stardate 06 stu 2011

[ ... ]

>>>work properly (but not necessarily to fast) on Slowaris. :)
>> Slowaris is what Linux kids claimed until they had to implement all
>> the normal locking and control of a modern kernel (instead of flying
>> loose and carefree). I find Solaris to be much faster on *equivilent*
>> hardware than Linux systems..
>
> Is that correct, for example, in respect of gcc, web performance and
> simmilar things?

Well ... I tend to prefer the compiler in Sun's "Studio 12"
development package -- if you can still get it along with Solaris 10
since the Oracle takeover, but there are some programs which really need
gcc to compile. My experience is that one takes longer to compile, but
produces somewhat faster code. (And I forget which is which at the
moment.)

[ ... ]

> I was afraid there might be something important in ALOM that would
> prevent me from accessing OS or something like that.

Only if you are trying to control it remotely (via ALOM). If
the V440 is like the Sun Fire 280R, you can even pull out the card which
implements ALOM or RSC (mine had RSC, not ALOM). However, the Sun Fire
V120 has the LOM chip on the system board, so you can't do that, though
you can change a jumper and power it up to flush the current settings
(including passwords) in the LOM.

Now, if someone had set the firmware password in the OBP, and
set the security-mode to "command" or "full", you could not boot from
the CD-ROM at all, and could only boot from a disk with Solaris
installed. From there, you could reset the security-mode to "none" and
clear the security-password, and then be free to do what you needed.

> As it appears, I should be good to go to fully functional Solaris.
>
> One more thing - there are two drives that came with machine, loaded
> with Solaris. Now when I star the installation procedure, I am offered
> an upgrade or "initialization" (I might be wrong, but something like
> that). Since I only skimmed through the instalation procedure and
> haven't reall started it yet, is it possible to wipe/zero-fill/LLF SCSI
> drives from the console, just to avoid any potential fuss with the
> instalation?

If you select "initial install" (I think that is the term, not
"initialize"), you will newfs all the disk partitions, and if you
re-partition (select the "custom" option when it gets to asking about
disk partitions), that will pretty much force a newfs on each changed
partition. But really, an "initial install" will clear away anything on
the disk anyway -- though not as thoroughly as it would with the format
"analyze" options set for one of the modes to "destroy existing data" --
but I hope that you have plenty of time to twiddle your thumbs while it
does this.

If you can boot to Solaris and log in as root, then they proably
did their own wipe of the disks and did a fresh install of Solaris
anyway -- whatever version they had on hand. :-)

>> Sure sounds like it. Once I had a few used systems that couldn't boot
>> dvd/cdrom and then I had to move a preinstalled system harddisk over
>> from another of the same class and get in that way..
>
> Since machine came from financial institution, I was affraid it might
> have some thorougher security roles. Lucky me, however, I was wrong...
>:)

Freshly scrubbed disks with a new install of Solaris -- I would
*hope*. :-) Maybe spare disks which they kept around fully loaded with
the OS for emergencies, and which they swapped in to send away a "clean"
system.

[ ... ]

>> Since I'm guessing that it isn't worth that for you, stay with the
>> OpenBoot you have. OpenBoot upgrades are boring, the fixes are
>> normally pretty esoteric. The only "feature" I've seen in fairly
>> recent Openboot is WANBoot, but I don't know if yours is new enough
>> or not. Its not like you spend more than 0.00001% of the time ever
>> messing in OpenBoot. Its about as exciting as updating your boot
>> blocks.
>
> My wories were regarding potential incompatibility with additional
> hardware (more RAM, new CPU cards, etc.); so, it's not worth it?

Usually the upgrades fix minor things with the hardware, and if
the system has been running quite a while with no problems (in their
service, not yours) it is probably new enough. I do like to upgrade if
I can, but Oracle has made it too difficult to get the firmware patches
these days.

[ ... ]

> BTW, JFTR, I measured power consumption of V440:
>
> (ATTN: may wrap)
> http://2.718281828459045235360287471352662497757247093699959574966967627.com/Sun-V440-Power-Consumption.html

O.K. Looks like UK power cords. Nice Fluke meters.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Remove oil spill source from e-mail
Email: <BPdnic...@d-and-d.com> | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

[George]

On 11/06/2011 10:18 PM, DoN. Nichols wrote:
> On 2011-11-06, Bubba<nick...@banelli.biz.invalid> wrote:
>> Doug McIntyre's log on stardate 06 stu 2011
>
> [ ... ]
>
>>>> work properly (but not necessarily to fast) on Slowaris. :)
>>> Slowaris is what Linux kids claimed until they had to implement all
>>> the normal locking and control of a modern kernel (instead of flying
>>> loose and carefree). I find Solaris to be much faster on *equivilent*
>>> hardware than Linux systems..
>>
>> Is that correct, for example, in respect of gcc, web performance and
>> simmilar things?
>
> Well ... I tend to prefer the compiler in Sun's "Studio 12"
> development package -- if you can still get it along with Solaris 10
> since the Oracle takeover, but there are some programs which really need
> gcc to compile. My experience is that one takes longer to compile, but
> produces somewhat faster code. (And I forget which is which at the
> moment.)

Yes, much code is chock full of Gnuisms that will only compile with gcc.

Many moons ago, a delegation of Sun engineers gave a dog-and-pony show
at my place of employment. They said that after developing dtrace, they
looked at "Slowlaris", found the problems to be system system libraries,
and worked hard at eliminating the latency. (This is Solaris 10, of
course.)

G

[Casper H.S. Dik]

George <geo...@invalid.invalid> writes:

>Yes, much code is chock full of Gnuisms that will only compile with gcc.

The current crop of Stdio compilers accepts most of the GNUisms.

Casper
--

[Bubba]

DoN. Nichols's log on stardate 07 stu 2011

>> Is that correct, for example, in respect of gcc, web performance and
>> simmilar things?
> Well ... I tend to prefer the compiler in Sun's "Studio 12"
> development package -- if you can still get it along with Solaris 10
> since the Oracle takeover, but there are some programs which really
> need gcc to compile. My experience is that one takes longer to
> compile, but produces somewhat faster code. (And I forget which is
> which at the moment.)

Hehe, well, I'd sacrifice longer compile time (that is, after all, "one
time job") for faster run time.

Either way, I need CLI tool, so I believe "Studio 12" or whatever is IDE,
so it is probably not worth installing just for compiler.

In any case, I'll check it out, thanks.

>> I was afraid there might be something important in ALOM that would
>> prevent me from accessing OS or something like that.
> Only if you are trying to control it remotely (via ALOM). If
> the V440 is like the Sun Fire 280R, you can even pull out the card
> which implements ALOM or RSC (mine had RSC, not ALOM). However, the
> Sun Fire V120 has the LOM chip on the system board, so you can't do
> that, though you can change a jumper and power it up to flush the
> current settings (including passwords) in the LOM.

I saw some jumpers, yes, and I thought they might be for something like
clearing settings. However, I couldn't find any sane documentation
regarding that card per se, so I'll have to give it a try a bit more...

> If you select "initial install" (I think that is the term, not
> "initialize"), you will newfs all the disk partitions, and if you
> re-partition (select the "custom" option when it gets to asking about
> disk partitions), that will pretty much force a newfs on each changed
> partition. But really, an "initial install" will clear away anything
> on the disk anyway -- though not as thoroughly as it would with the
> format "analyze" options set for one of the modes to "destroy
> existing data" -- but I hope that you have plenty of time to twiddle
> your thumbs while it does this.

Oh, that's great news.

Well, I'll just keep it rollin' during the night...

> Freshly scrubbed disks with a new install of Solaris -- I would
> *hope*. :-) Maybe spare disks which they kept around fully loaded
> with the OS for emergencies, and which they swapped in to send away a
> "clean" system.

I don't really care, I just want to wipe them clean, even if they had
human readable text files with PIN's. :)

> O.K. Looks like UK power cords. Nice Fluke meters.

Nope, two times. :) It's Croatia (Schuko -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuko) and ammeter's noware near Fluke :D;
but for el cheapo Ebay purchase, it does its job pretty well. :)

[ji...@specsol.spam.sux.com]

Bubba <nick...@banelli.biz.invalid> wrote:
> DoN. Nichols's log on stardate 07 stu 2011
>
>>> Is that correct, for example, in respect of gcc, web performance and
>>> simmilar things?
>> Well ... I tend to prefer the compiler in Sun's "Studio 12"
>> development package -- if you can still get it along with Solaris 10
>> since the Oracle takeover, but there are some programs which really
>> need gcc to compile. My experience is that one takes longer to
>> compile, but produces somewhat faster code. (And I forget which is
>> which at the moment.)
>
> Hehe, well, I'd sacrifice longer compile time (that is, after all, "one
> time job") for faster run time.
>
> Either way, I need CLI tool, so I believe "Studio 12" or whatever is IDE,
> so it is probably not worth installing just for compiler.
>
> In any case, I'll check it out, thanks.

FWIW, I almost never use the IDE to compile, but it is well worth having
it if you need to debug.



--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

[Doug McIntyre]

Bubba <nick...@banelli.biz.invalid> writes:
>Doug McIntyre's log on stardate 06 stu 2011

>> ... I find Solaris to be much faster on *equivilent*

>> hardware than Linux systems..

>Is that correct, for example, in respect of gcc, web performance and
>simmilar things?

Sure. But the comparisons are usually extremely lopsided. Ie. they
take a 12 year old Sun server, and run it up against a modern Intel
Xeon, and trump that the Xeon CPU is faster, disk is faster, etc.

>I was afraid there might be something important in ALOM that would
>prevent me from accessing OS or something like that.

Only if it doesn't let you boot without a password.

>As it appears, I should be good to go to fully functional Solaris.

>One more thing - there are two drives that came with machine, loaded
>with Solaris. Now when I star the installation procedure, I am offered
>an upgrade or "initialization" (I might be wrong, but something like
>that). Since I only skimmed through the instalation procedure and
>haven't reall started it yet, is it possible to wipe/zero-fill/LLF SCSI
>drives from the console, just to avoid any potential fuss with the
>instalation?

If you do an initial install, vs. a an upgrade, you'll have the option
to redo the drive layout, and it'll newfs all your new partitions
right over anything old.

>Since machine came from financial institution, I was affraid it might
>have some thorougher security roles. Lucky me, however, I was wrong...
>:)

In my experience, the bigger the institution, the more lax the
security/knowledge/sys admin experience.

>>>.OpenBootPROM Version <<<

>My wories were regarding potential incompatibility with additional
>hardware (more RAM, new CPU cards, etc.); so, it's not worth it?

It is a remote possibility that you could require a new OBP to support
the newest CPUs, I don't know. I search for the release notes for 142707-01,
but didn't really see anything that called out to me as required for
newer CPUs than you may have. If you buy CPU upgrades from a decent
dealer, they may just help you out if something is required.

>BTW, JFTR, I measured power consumption of V440:

Looks like about right from what I remember of those class of machines.
It got worse after these, then better after those.

[DoN. Nichols]

On 2011-11-07, Bubba <nick...@banelli.biz.invalid> wrote:
> DoN. Nichols's log on stardate 07 stu 2011
>
>>> Is that correct, for example, in respect of gcc, web performance and
>>> simmilar things?
>> Well ... I tend to prefer the compiler in Sun's "Studio 12"
>> development package -- if you can still get it along with Solaris 10
>> since the Oracle takeover, but there are some programs which really
>> need gcc to compile. My experience is that one takes longer to
>> compile, but produces somewhat faster code. (And I forget which is
>> which at the moment.)
>
> Hehe, well, I'd sacrifice longer compile time (that is, after all, "one
> time job") for faster run time.

With the tradeoff that if you are doing a lot of compiles in
debugging, the faster compile is a benefit until you are ready for
production. (So write your code so it will compile on both. :-)

Here is the comparison (using the old dhrystone benchmark) with
the two compilers on a Sun Blade 2000 with dual 1.2 GHz CPUs:

======================================================================
* MACHINE MICROPROCESSOR OPERATING COMPILER DHRYSTONES/SEC.
* TYPE SYSTEM NO REG REGS
* -------------------------- ------------ ----------- ---------------
* SB-2K US-III dual 1.2 GHZ Solaris 10 cc 3086419 3086419
* SB-2K US-III dual 1.2 GHZ Solaris 10 gcc 3355704 3355704
======================================================================

So -- since gcc produced the faster run time (in this one very
limited benchmark), then the cc with Studio 12 must have been the faster
compile time.

with lots of other machine results snipped out.

> Either way, I need CLI tool, so I believe "Studio 12" or whatever is IDE,
> so it is probably not worth installing just for compiler.

There are a bunch of CLI compilers in the Studio 12 package, and
NetBeans is the accompanying IDE, which I have never used.


======================================================================
/opt/SUNWspro/bin:
analyzer@ cxref@ fbe@ rtc_patch_area@ tcov@
b2m@ dbx@ fdumpmod@ rxm@ tha@
bcheck@ dem@ fpp@ rxs@ uil2xd@
bil2xd@ dmake@ fpr@ sbcleanup@ uninstaller@
binopt@ dumpstabs@ fpversion@ sbenter@ version-5.0@
c++filt@ dwarfdump@ fsplit@ sbquery@ version@
c89@ ellcc@ gil2xd@ sbtags@ visu@
c99@ er_archive@ gnuattach@ smallxd@ visuroot@
cb@ er_cp@ gnuclient@ smctl@ whatdir@
cc-5.0@ er_export@ gnudoit@ sparcv9/ xdcapture@
cc@ er_kernel@ gvim@ ss_attach@ xdconfig@
CC@ er_mv@ indent@ sunas@ xdesigner@
CCadmin@ er_print@ libsunperf_check@ sunc89@ xdhelp@
cflow@ er_rm@ lint@ sunc99@ xdrecord@
checkjava@ er_src@ lock_lint@ suncc@ xdreplay@
collect@ etags@ ootags@ sunCC@ xdroot@
cscope@ f77@ prepare_system@ sunf77@ xdtosj@
ctc@ f90@ ptclean@ sunf90@ xemacs-mule@
ctcr@ f95@ rcs-checkin@ sunf95@ xemacs@
ctrace@ fbe-4.0@ rdtimgr@ sunstudio@
======================================================================

These are all duplicated by more links in /usr/bin. So lots of CLI
compilers, including several flavors of C, and several versions of
FORTRAN as well as tools like indent, cflow, cscope, and dbx (the
debugger).

BTW Also beware that some programs may not absolutely require gcc
to compile, but will look like it, because they require a gnu
(or similar) version of make.

BTW Also notice several gnu programs are in the above list.

> In any case, I'll check it out, thanks.

Enjoy.

>>> I was afraid there might be something important in ALOM that would
>>> prevent me from accessing OS or something like that.
>> Only if you are trying to control it remotely (via ALOM). If
>> the V440 is like the Sun Fire 280R, you can even pull out the card
>> which implements ALOM or RSC (mine had RSC, not ALOM). However, the
>> Sun Fire V120 has the LOM chip on the system board, so you can't do
>> that, though you can change a jumper and power it up to flush the
>> current settings (including passwords) in the LOM.
>
> I saw some jumpers, yes, and I thought they might be for something like
> clearing settings. However, I couldn't find any sane documentation
> regarding that card per se, so I'll have to give it a try a bit more...

Is the ALOM on the V440 a separate card, like the RCS on the Sun
Fire 280R? If so, you can simply pull the card and get it all out of
the way until you have an installed OS, and then can reinstall the ALOM
card and clean the user list and associated passwords in there.

>> If you select "initial install" (I think that is the term, not
>> "initialize"), you will newfs all the disk partitions, and if you
>> re-partition (select the "custom" option when it gets to asking about
>> disk partitions), that will pretty much force a newfs on each changed
>> partition. But really, an "initial install" will clear away anything
>> on the disk anyway -- though not as thoroughly as it would with the
>> format "analyze" options set for one of the modes to "destroy
>> existing data" -- but I hope that you have plenty of time to twiddle
>> your thumbs while it does this.
>
> Oh, that's great news.
>
> Well, I'll just keep it rollin' during the night...

O.K. The initial install does not take that long, even with
manual repartitioning, but if you go into format and ask for a
destructive surface check, that will take forever with 72 GB or larger
disks. But for your purposes, just letting the initial install do its
newfs on each partition should be fine.

>> Freshly scrubbed disks with a new install of Solaris -- I would
>> *hope*. :-) Maybe spare disks which they kept around fully loaded
>> with the OS for emergencies, and which they swapped in to send away a
>> "clean" system.
>
> I don't really care, I just want to wipe them clean, even if they had
> human readable text files with PIN's. :)

If you really fear that such is there (and are worried about it
being there), then the format with the surface check option. O.K. Here
is the first menu in format:

======================================================================
FORMAT MENU:
disk - select a disk
type - select (define) a disk type
partition - select (define) a partition table
current - describe the current disk
format - format and analyze the disk
repair - repair a defective sector
label - write label to the disk
analyze - surface analysis
defect - defect list management
backup - search for backup labels
verify - read and display labels
save - save new disk/partition definitions
inquiry - show vendor, product and revision
volname - set 8-character volume name
!<cmd> - execute <cmd>, then return
quit
format>
======================================================================

And the choice which I was trying to remember is "analyze". And its
sub-menu is:

======================================================================
ANALYZE MENU:
read - read only test (doesn't harm SunOS)
refresh - read then write (doesn't harm data)
test - pattern testing (doesn't harm data)
write - write then read (corrupts data)
compare - write, read, compare (corrupts data)
purge - write, read, write (corrupts data)
verify - write entire disk, then verify (corrupts data)
print - display data buffer
setup - set analysis parameters
config - show analysis parameters
!<cmd> - execute <cmd> , then return
quit
analyze>
======================================================================

The "purge" choice would probably be the best one, and it will take (by
default) two passes, each with bit patterns which are the compliment of
the previous one. A third pass with yet another bit pattern would be
even better, if you have the time to spare. After this, nobody except
perhaps the intelligence agencies would be able to show what was on
there before. You can tune the bit patterns among othe things with the
"setup" menu entry.

>> O.K. Looks like UK power cords. Nice Fluke meters.
>
> Nope, two times. :) It's Croatia (Schuko -

O.K. Certainly not US ones -- including based on the voltage
shown.

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuko) and ammeter's noware near Fluke :D;
> but for el cheapo Ebay purchase, it does its job pretty well. :)

That is what matters. The voltmeter is a Fluke, though, is it
not? I've lost the URL so I can't go back and check.

Good Luck,

[Bubba]

ji...@specsol.spam.sux.com's log on stardate 07 stu 2011

> FWIW, I almost never use the IDE to compile, but it is well worth
> having it if you need to debug.

Seldom is my code non portable, so I tend to use ANSI C (C90) and Visual
Studio for that purposes. Thus, Sun should only do the numbers... :)

[Bubba]

Doug McIntyre's log on stardate 07 stu 2011

>>> ... I find Solaris to be much faster on *equivilent*
>>> hardware than Linux systems..
>>Is that correct, for example, in respect of gcc, web performance and
>>simmilar things?
> Sure. But the comparisons are usually extremely lopsided. Ie. they
> take a 12 year old Sun server, and run it up against a modern Intel
> Xeon, and trump that the Xeon CPU is faster, disk is faster, etc.

Regarding that, is it only my imagination, or it seems that Sun machines
are not near market ration that they used to be, regardless of Niagara and
whole multithreading story? In addition, after Oracles (hostile) takeover,
I would guess that will be even bigger hardware downfall...

>>Since machine came from financial institution, I was affraid it might
>>have some thorougher security roles. Lucky me, however, I was
>>wrong...

> In my experience, the bigger the institution, the more lax the
> security/knowledge/sys admin experience.

That's true, but they usually outsource guys for serious stuff. :)

>>>>.OpenBootPROM Version <<<
>>My wories were regarding potential incompatibility with additional
>>hardware (more RAM, new CPU cards, etc.); so, it's not worth it?
> It is a remote possibility that you could require a new OBP to
> support the newest CPUs, I don't know. I search for the release notes
> for 142707-01, but didn't really see anything that called out to me
> as required for newer CPUs than you may have. If you buy CPU upgrades
> from a decent dealer, they may just help you out if something is
> required.

Luckily, I decided to go with the option of upgrading the number of CPU's,
not change the entire platform for faster ones, so that wouldn't be a
problem anyway.

However, it is disappointing one cannot find change log or any other
relevant document about versions of OBP... :\

>>BTW, JFTR, I measured power consumption of V440:
> Looks like about right from what I remember of those class of
> machines. It got worse after these, then better after those.

Well, according to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC#SPARC_microprocessor_specifications

TDP (I guess?) should be 80W. And that would count for fastest CPU. Since
I do have 300 MHz slower versions (1.28 GHz), I would guess their power
consumption would be around 65-70W. I wonder, where did almost 150W go if
that chart is correct...

I'll try removing one CPU and test with additional CPU's when they arrive
just to check out how much (approximately) does one CPU card consumes.

[Bubba]

DoN. Nichols's log on stardate 08 stu 2011

>> Hehe, well, I'd sacrifice longer compile time (that is, after all,
>> "one time job") for faster run time.
> With the tradeoff that if you are doing a lot of compiles in
> debugging, the faster compile is a benefit until you are ready for
> production. (So write your code so it will compile on both. :-)
> Here is the comparison (using the old dhrystone benchmark) with
> the two compilers on a Sun Blade 2000 with dual 1.2 GHz CPUs:

/snip

> So -- since gcc produced the faster run time (in this one very
> limited benchmark), then the cc with Studio 12 must have been the
> faster compile time.

I survived compiling of PHP, Apache, MySQL, samba, GMP and several
others on m68k 33MHz. :)

(ATTN: may wrap)
http://2.718281828459045235360287471352662497757247093699959574966967627.com/ddaveuptime.png

Trust me, there's nothing that can surprise me any more regarding speed
of computation. :)

That's why these machines sit in the basement and have SSH connections.
So you let it compile in the morning, and come back after lunch - et
voila! :)

>> Either way, I need CLI tool, so I believe "Studio 12" or whatever is
>> IDE, so it is probably not worth installing just for compiler.
> There are a bunch of CLI compilers in the Studio 12 package, and
> NetBeans is the accompanying IDE, which I have never used.

/snip

Well, in any case, I won't have any Solaris specific compilation. Since
gcc is de facto C compiler standard, I'll just cut myself some slack
and simply install and forget about it. :)

>> In any case, I'll check it out, thanks.
> Enjoy.

I will, when I remove machine phisicaly, since it is unberable loud. I
must admit I don't recall such loud machine in quite some time...

> Is the ALOM on the V440 a separate card, like the RCS on the Sun
> Fire 280R?

Yup.

> If so, you can simply pull the card and get it all out of the way
> until you have an installed OS, and then can reinstall the ALOM card
> and clean the user list and associated passwords in there.

I did that, but got no output from DB9 RS232 port (ttyb). Did I miss
something?

Lack of quality hardware documentation about that server really
frustrates me. You know like old Sun's had lots of info about switching
jumpers to change from RS232 to RS422 and simmilar stuff, I can't find
any refference about jumpers and hardware settings for V440.

Sun Fire V440 Server Parts Installation and Removal Guide is somewhat
close to what I seek, but I really don't need 20 pictures of how to
remove memory from slot... :(

> O.K. The initial install does not take that long, even with
> manual repartitioning, but if you go into format and ask for a
> destructive surface check, that will take forever with 72 GB or
> larger disks. But for your purposes, just letting the initial
> install do its newfs on each partition should be fine.

Well, he's got whole week, since I have plenty of day (real) job to do,
so actual fiddling with the machine will have to wait for the weekend

> If you really fear that such is there (and are worried about it
> being there), then the format with the surface check option. O.K.
> Here is the first menu in format:

/snip

> The "purge" choice would probably be the best one, and it will take
> (by default) two passes, each with bit patterns which are the
> compliment of the previous one. A third pass with yet another bit
> pattern would be even better, if you have the time to spare. After
> this, nobody except perhaps the intelligence agencies would be able
> to show what was on there before. You can tune the bit patterns
> among othe things with the "setup" menu entry.

Great, thanks for thorough explanation. However, don't worry, after
first change of data (bits), only dear God, Chuck Norris and time
machine can whiteness what was on the hard drive. Everything else is
just purely, plainly - bullshit.

>>> O.K. Looks like UK power cords. Nice Fluke meters.
>> Nope, two times. :) It's Croatia (Schuko -
> O.K. Certainly not US ones -- including based on the voltage
> shown.

That's right. :)

>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuko) and ammeter's noware near Fluke
>> :D; but for el cheapo Ebay purchase, it does its job pretty well. :)
> That is what matters. The voltmeter is a Fluke, though, is it
> not? I've lost the URL so I can't go back and check.

(ATTN: may wrap)
http://2.718281828459045235360287471352662497757247093699959574966967627.com/Sun-V440-Power-Consumption.html

[Doug McIntyre]

Bubba <nick...@banelli.biz.invalid> writes:
> I will, when I remove machine phisicaly, since it is unberable
> loud. I must admit I don't recall such loud machine in quite some time...

Any enterprise server in my facility is equally as loud. They only
care about moving air in and out, and plan on having things like this
housed in a data center. No need to get softer fans, other than
perhaps a power saving benefit.

> I did that, but got no output from DB9 RS232 port (ttyb). Did I miss
> something?

Console is always ttya on a Sun system. On your specific model (as
well as most newer ones), that is called 'Serial MGMT'. That also
bypasses the ALOM on your model box in general, unless they specific
tied all console in/out through the ALOM. Then removing the ALOM card
should revert console output back to 'Serial MGMT'.

> Lack of quality hardware documentation about that server really
> frustrates me. You know like old Sun's had lots of info about
> switching
> jumpers to change from RS232 to RS422 and simmilar stuff, I can't find
> any refference about jumpers and hardware settings for V440.

There aren't that many jumpers any longer, or the ones that remain are
for emergancy field tech use, not for any normal ops.

I find this doc to be better overall.. Perhaps this does better for
you?

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E19088-01/v440.srvr/816-7728-10/816-7728-10.pdf

Your doc name is pretty specialized to removing and installing components..

Oracle does still have the full doc library open and online.

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E19088-01/v440.srvr/index.html

>However, it is disappointing one cannot find change log or any other
>relevant document about versions of OBP... :\

While the Oracle portal is the official way.. There's others out there..

http://wesunsolve.net/patch/id/142707-01

>TDP (I guess?) should be 80W. And that would count for fastest CPU. Since
>I do have 300 MHz slower versions (1.28 GHz), I would guess their power
>consumption would be around 65-70W. I wonder, where did almost 150W go if
>that chart is correct...

While CPU is the single most largest power draw now, you still have
hard drives, fans, frame buffers, NICs, other expansion cards, etc.
Hard drives can be 12-20W a piece. Fans add up there. Chipset on
motherboard adds up. Etc.

[ji...@specsol.spam.sux.com]

Bubba <nick...@banelli.biz.invalid> wrote:
> ji...@specsol.spam.sux.com's log on stardate 07 stu 2011
>
>> FWIW, I almost never use the IDE to compile, but it is well worth
>> having it if you need to debug.
>
> Seldom is my code non portable, so I tend to use ANSI C (C90) and Visual
> Studio for that purposes. Thus, Sun should only do the numbers... :)

IMHO debugging with Visual Studio is primative compared to the Solaris
Studio tools.

YMMV.

[Bubba]

ji...@specsol.spam.sux.com's log on stardate 08 stu 2011

>>> FWIW, I almost never use the IDE to compile, but it is well worth
>>> having it if you need to debug.
>> Seldom is my code non portable, so I tend to use ANSI C (C90) and
>> Visual Studio for that purposes. Thus, Sun should only do the
>> numbers... :)
> IMHO debugging with Visual Studio is primative compared to the
> Solaris Studio tools.
> YMMV.

I haven't tried Sun Studio so thoroughly, but you are aware that calling
VS primitive in any aspect is a very strong and serious statement that I
personally believe is hardly applicable comparing to anything.

[Bubba]

Doug McIntyre's log on stardate 08 stu 2011

>> I will, when I remove machine phisicaly, since it is unberable
>> loud. I must admit I don't recall such loud machine in quite some
>> time...
> Any enterprise server in my facility is equally as loud. They only
> care about moving air in and out, and plan on having things like this
> housed in a data center. No need to get softer fans, other than
> perhaps a power saving benefit.

No argument about loud enterprise servers, but this one has a specific...
hissing sound, due to those two "turbins" that cool CPU's...

>> I did that, but got no output from DB9 RS232 port (ttyb). Did I miss
>> something?
> Console is always ttya on a Sun system.

Except whene there is no ttya? :)

http://www.spectra.com/pdfs/sunfirev440.pdf - ttya is RJ45 serial
management on ALOM card - DB9 on V440's motherboard is plane RS232...

> On your specific model (as well as most newer ones), that is called
> 'Serial MGMT'. That also bypasses the ALOM on your model box in
> general, unless they specific tied all console in/out through the
> ALOM. Then removing the ALOM card should revert console output back
> to 'Serial MGMT'.

As I've said, I already tried removing ALOM card (it seems to be inserted
in some kind of proprietary slot) and connected cable to ttyb. Nothing
happened.

> There aren't that many jumpers any longer, or the ones that remain
> are for emergancy field tech use, not for any normal ops.
> I find this doc to be better overall.. Perhaps this does better for
> you?
> http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E19088-01/v440.srvr/816-7728-10/816
> -7728-10.pdf
> Your doc name is pretty specialized to removing and installing
> components..

This is not particularly useful to anyone having more than 3 months of
experience with any kind of hardware.

IIRC, there are 3 sets of jumpers on ALOM card. I am pretty sure one is
used for "removing" data from NVRAM or wherever it is written. I can't
seem to find any reference on what they are for, at least not officially
from SUN.

> Oracle does still have the full doc library open and online.
> http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E19088-01/v440.srvr/index.html

And again, except for several Solaris related facts, pretty useless, in
general, comparing to, for example, IBM's Redbooks and datasheets.

>>However, it is disappointing one cannot find change log or any other
>>relevant document about versions of OBP... :\
> While the Oracle portal is the official way.. There's others out
> there..
> http://wesunsolve.net/patch/id/142707-01

Great site, thank you!

For the love of god, did you look at the bugs list that latest patch
repairs? Naturally, 142707-01.zip is unavailable for download via Oracle
site, and I find no reference of it on Google.

Do you thing that perhaps people maintaining that site (I see that they
have IRC) could provide that patch, unofficially and without liability,
naturally?

>>TDP (I guess?) should be 80W. And that would count for fastest CPU.
>>Since I do have 300 MHz slower versions (1.28 GHz), I would guess
>>their power consumption would be around 65-70W. I wonder, where did
>>almost 150W go if that chart is correct...
> While CPU is the single most largest power draw now, you still have
> hard drives, fans, frame buffers, NICs, other expansion cards, etc.
> Hard drives can be 12-20W a piece. Fans add up there. Chipset on
> motherboard adds up. Etc.

SCSI power consumption is known and does not vary much, but yes, coming to
think of, 8 memory modules (ECC Reg.), chipset(s), 2x Quad Gigabit
NIC's... It adds up quickly. :)

[ji...@specsol.spam.sux.com]

Bubba <nick...@banelli.biz.invalid> wrote:
> ji...@specsol.spam.sux.com's log on stardate 08 stu 2011
>
>>>> FWIW, I almost never use the IDE to compile, but it is well worth
>>>> having it if you need to debug.
>>> Seldom is my code non portable, so I tend to use ANSI C (C90) and
>>> Visual Studio for that purposes. Thus, Sun should only do the
>>> numbers... :)
>> IMHO debugging with Visual Studio is primative compared to the
>> Solaris Studio tools.
>> YMMV.
>
> I haven't tried Sun Studio so thoroughly, but you are aware that calling
> VS primitive in any aspect is a very strong and serious statement that I
> personally believe is hardly applicable comparing to anything.

Unless VS has been vastly improved since the last time I used it, I have
to stand by my opinion and am sorry that it offends you somehow, but for
serious debugging Solaris Studio has every other debugger I've ever used
beat by a wide margin.

[Doug McIntyre]

Bubba <nick...@banelli.biz.invalid> writes:
>Except whene there is no ttya? :)

There is, it is 'Serial MGMT', and is NOT a DE9. It is an RJ45.

>As I've said, I already tried removing ALOM card (it seems to be inserted
>in some kind of proprietary slot) and connected cable to ttyb. Nothing
>happened.

Not surprising, ttyb is not used by anything console related.
ttya (AKA Serial MGMT) is. You will have to connect to it with the
correct RJ45 serial cable (same as used by Cisco, Juniper, almost
every network hardware vendor).

[Bubba]

Doug McIntyre's log on stardate 08 stu 2011

>>Except whene there is no ttya? :)
> There is, it is 'Serial MGMT', and is NOT a DE9. It is an RJ45.

And it is exactly the one I'm using, but it's on ALOM card!

>>As I've said, I already tried removing ALOM card (it seems to be
>>inserted in some kind of proprietary slot) and connected cable to
>>ttyb. Nothing happened.
> Not surprising, ttyb is not used by anything console related.
> ttya (AKA Serial MGMT) is. You will have to connect to it with the
> correct RJ45 serial cable (same as used by Cisco, Juniper, almost
> every network hardware vendor).

:) Well, as I've mentioned in posts early, I am connected to ALOM card,
that is ttya, and that's where my initial issue started - I was unsure
whether inability to login to ALOM had anything to do with normal
functionality of whole machine, since only way to access it (without frame
buffer) is ttya *on ALOM card*.

[Doug McIntyre]

Bubba <nick...@banelli.biz.invalid> writes:
>:) Well, as I've mentioned in posts early, I am connected to ALOM card,
>that is ttya, and that's where my initial issue started - I was unsure
>whether inability to login to ALOM had anything to do with normal
>functionality of whole machine, since only way to access it (without frame
>buffer) is ttya *on ALOM card*.

The serial port on the ALOM port isn't ttya (ie. the system console).

The RJ-45 Serial port on the system itself is ttya.
The DE9 serial port on the system itself is ttyb (nothing to see there).

[Bubba]

Once again, that statement is very strong, especially when you have
described it pretty vaguely.

VS from version 2005 has very strong toolset for debugging and I am
quite surprised any other IDE would be incomparably better than it.

Since your statement is rather ambiguous, what was the critical
disadvantage of (or incredible Solaris Studio advantage versus) VS and
which version?

Personally, I prefer multi monitor setup and have three Dell U2312HM
LCDs on my desk. Last time I used Solaris (and it was 10, but some
earlier iteration), it didn't even support multi monitor setup as
Windows did, let alone have specialized tools (such as VS) that work
flawlessly in such setup. Not to mention team collaboration and easy
deployment for many platforms out of the box. Tools (for Windows
programming primarily) such as MFC tracer, Spy++ and similar are quite
useful and I haven't seen any of those in other IDE's (although they
are in fact stand alone applications, but still). I must admit I can't
think of any critical flaw in VS's debugger, and don't recall I have
heard anyone complaining about it in general. Even OpenCL&CUDA
debugging works like a charm. Many moons have passed since I used
Solaris as a workstation...

Vendor Device: Type Name Solaris Driver: 32BIT 64BIT
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
nVidia Corpora... V NV18GL [Quadro FX 550] Y Y
Intel Corporation M 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition ... N N
Intel Corporation N 82573L Gigabit Ethernet Controller Y Y
Intel Corporation U 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #1 Y Y
Intel Corporation U 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #2 Y Y
Intel Corporation U 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #3 Y Y
Intel Corporation U 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #4 Y Y
Intel Corporation U 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Contro... Y Y
Adaptec S AHA-3960D / AIC-7899A U160/m Y Y
Texas Instruments F TSB43AB23 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller ... Y Y
Intel Corporation S 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller Y Y
Intel Corporation S 82801GB/GR/GH (ICH7 Family) Serial AT... Y Y

Driver Notes:
Y - Solaris Driver Found; T - Third Party Driver; N - No Solaris Driver
Device Types:
V - Video; N - Network; S - Storage; M - Multimedia; U - USB; F - Firewire;

Notes:
1. This system is likely to install Solaris 10 11/06. Check the list above for
driver availability for identified devices.
2. This software might need an update after 2007-07-19. Please download the
latest version at http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/hcts/install_check.html

...but I don't recall Solaris Studio being so memorably and
incomparably better than VS.

Your statement is equal to the general conclusion that Sparc sux and
Intel rulz, or vice versa. It makes no difference to me, but it looks
quite... funny, to say the least, on your behalf. :)

[Bubba]

Doug McIntyre's log on stardate 09 stu 2011

> The serial port on the ALOM port isn't ttya (ie. the system console).
> The RJ-45 Serial port on the system itself is ttya.
> The DE9 serial port on the system itself is ttyb (nothing to see
> there).

Errrr, I think you are wrong. ALOM card has serial management port (ttya,
although it can only be used as console) and network management port, both
physically RJ45. Server itself ("MBO") has DB9 and two RJ45 serving as
classic RS232 (ttyb) and Ethernet (GB) devices.

There are alternative system console configuration (page 46 of Sun Fire
V440 Server Administration Guide) but none of which are available without
ALOM card and usage of ttya on it.

[ji...@specsol.spam.sux.com]

Start with pthreads tracing and memory leak detection and work from there.

> Personally, I prefer multi monitor setup and have three Dell U2312HM
> LCDs on my desk. Last time I used Solaris (and it was 10, but some
> earlier iteration), it didn't even support multi monitor setup as

Solaris has supported multiple monitors since at least the 80's (the
earliest I ever saw one) and it is simply a matter of having multiple
graphics cards in the system.

However, my V440 doesn't have a graphics card as it is configured as a
server.

I simply open as many X11 windows as I want when using it.

> Windows did, let alone have specialized tools (such as VS) that work
> flawlessly in such setup.

Don't have a clue about X11, do you?

On a typical day I have about a half dozen X11 windows open on various
Sun and HP machines and on occasion a remote console on some Windows box.

Not sure what a hardware list has to do with compilers and debugers...

> ...but I don't recall Solaris Studio being so memorably and
> incomparably better than VS.

Again, start with pthreads tracing and memory leak detection and work from
there.

It is also integrated with DTRACE.

> Your statement is equal to the general conclusion that Sparc sux and
> Intel rulz, or vice versa. It makes no difference to me, but it looks
> quite... funny, to say the least, on your behalf. :)

Yeah...

[Bubba]

ji...@specsol.spam.sux.com's log on stardate 09 stu 2011

>> Since your statement is rather ambiguous, what was the critical
>> disadvantage of (or incredible Solaris Studio advantage versus) VS
>> and which version?
> Start with pthreads tracing and memory leak detection and work from
> there.

I'd like to start with pthreads when Windows would support them, but they
support Windows threads so non sequitur. Thus we can only discuss whether
winthread is better than pthread than...

Memory leaks are problem of incompetent programmer and I really can't say
how VS's debugger and CRT's are inferior to toolset that Solaris Studio
uses since I haven't tried them.

But perhaps you could shed some light to the matter since you are
obviously acquainted with the topic?

> Solaris has supported multiple monitors since at least the 80's (the
> earliest I ever saw one) and it is simply a matter of having multiple
> graphics cards in the system.

Well, Solaris 10 I used had lousy and primitive support for multiple
monitors 4 years ago. I haven't seen that it has advanced much, at least
not in comparison with Windows.

> I simply open as many X11 windows as I want when using it.

And that is your definition of "quality multimonitor setup"?

> Don't have a clue about X11, do you?

Don't have a clue what the "multiple monitor" setup is? Let alone quality
one?

> On a typical day I have about a half dozen X11 windows open on
> various Sun and HP machines and on occasion a remote console on some
> Windows box.

Good for you. What exactly does this has to do with multimonitor setup?

/snip

> Not sure what a hardware list has to do with compilers and
> debugers...

To show you the last time I used Solaris was not so historically long ago
and its ability to support multiple monitors and flawlessness of Solaris
Studio was not so distinct I would remain on it.

> Again, start with pthreads tracing and memory leak detection and work
> from there.

Well, you can return to the top of my post than.

> It is also integrated with DTRACE.

Wow. Does it? And that's what makes it so good or what? Visual Studio can
be interfaced with whole set of Sysinternals that include DebugView and
other tools for debugging, tracing, etc.

>> Your statement is equal to the general conclusion that Sparc sux and
>> Intel rulz, or vice versa. It makes no difference to me, but it
>> looks quite... funny, to say the least, on your behalf. :)
> Yeah...

Yeah indeed. You are ranting about something you apparently don't know
much, or you are just so kind and withholding crucial information to the
poor people of css.hw group.

In any case, I am aware of many VS's strengths and weaknesses since I have
been hanging with it since 2006. intensively on designing C/C++
applications, including WinSock and MFC. You, so far, were no ware near
explaining what is so cool, great and unsurpassable better in Solaris
Studio than in VS, except few trolling techno-babbling words without any
sane explanation...

[ji...@specsol.spam.sux.com]

Bubba <nick...@banelli.biz.invalid> wrote:
> ji...@specsol.spam.sux.com's log on stardate 09 stu 2011
>
>>> Since your statement is rather ambiguous, what was the critical
>>> disadvantage of (or incredible Solaris Studio advantage versus) VS
>>> and which version?
>> Start with pthreads tracing and memory leak detection and work from
>> there.
>
> I'd like to start with pthreads when Windows would support them, but they
> support Windows threads so non sequitur. Thus we can only discuss whether
> winthread is better than pthread than...

Actually you can use POSIX threads on windows.

> Memory leaks are problem of incompetent programmer and I really can't say
> how VS's debugger and CRT's are inferior to toolset that Solaris Studio
> uses since I haven't tried them.
>
> But perhaps you could shed some light to the matter since you are
> obviously acquainted with the topic?

Have you ever heard the saying "To err is human"?

Memory leaks occur no matter how competent the programmer and the more
complex a program, the more likely there will be a memory leak.

Your statement "...I haven't tried them" says it all.

>> Solaris has supported multiple monitors since at least the 80's (the
>> earliest I ever saw one) and it is simply a matter of having multiple
>> graphics cards in the system.
>
> Well, Solaris 10 I used had lousy and primitive support for multiple
> monitors 4 years ago. I haven't seen that it has advanced much, at least
> not in comparison with Windows.

Utter nonsense

Perhaps what you really meant to say is Solaris lacks support for generic
graphics cards from no-name Taiwanese vendors.

>> I simply open as many X11 windows as I want when using it.
>
> And that is your definition of "quality multimonitor setup"?

You really don't understand how it works, do you?

Multiple monitors depend on there being multiple graphics cards installed
in the computer.

Software support for multiple graphics cards has been part of X11 for
about 30 years or so.

Software support for a particular graphics card is a separate issue.

>> Don't have a clue about X11, do you?
>
> Don't have a clue what the "multiple monitor" setup is? Let alone quality
> one?

Pure babble.

Again, software support for multiple graphics cards has been part of X11 for
about 30 years or so.

>> On a typical day I have about a half dozen X11 windows open on
>> various Sun and HP machines and on occasion a remote console on some
>> Windows box.
>
> Good for you. What exactly does this has to do with multimonitor setup?

Mostly that under X11 it is rare that someone has a real need for multiple
monitors, especially these days with high resolution monitors.

I can only think of one organization that makes real use of multiple
monitors and that is for a specialized monitoring and control application
that has about a half dozen active windows running.

They have been running this on HP and Solaris Unix systems for a couple
of decades now.

> /snip
>
>> Not sure what a hardware list has to do with compilers and
>> debugers...
>
> To show you the last time I used Solaris was not so historically long ago
> and its ability to support multiple monitors and flawlessness of Solaris
> Studio was not so distinct I would remain on it.

Babble.

Solaris Studio has nothing to do with the underlying hardware.

It is the Solaris operating system that supports the monitors.

The operating system has supported multiple graphics cards for at least
30 years.

If you have three graphics cards in the system and you want Solaris Studio
running on the third one, it is simply stated with:

sunstudio -DISPLAY :0.3

>> Again, start with pthreads tracing and memory leak detection and work
>> from there.
>
> Well, you can return to the top of my post than.
>
>> It is also integrated with DTRACE.
>
> Wow. Does it? And that's what makes it so good or what? Visual Studio can
> be interfaced with whole set of Sysinternals that include DebugView and
> other tools for debugging, tracing, etc.

Most of that is built into Solaris Studio.

>>> Your statement is equal to the general conclusion that Sparc sux and
>>> Intel rulz, or vice versa. It makes no difference to me, but it
>>> looks quite... funny, to say the least, on your behalf. :)
>> Yeah...
>
> Yeah indeed. You are ranting about something you apparently don't know
> much, or you are just so kind and withholding crucial information to the
> poor people of css.hw group.
>
> In any case, I am aware of many VS's strengths and weaknesses since I have
> been hanging with it since 2006. intensively on designing C/C++
> applications, including WinSock and MFC. You, so far, were no ware near
> explaining what is so cool, great and unsurpassable better in Solaris
> Studio than in VS, except few trolling techno-babbling words without any
> sane explanation...

Whoopee!!

I've been working with various flavors of Unix and X11 since about 1980,
which is 5 years before any version of Microsoft Windows existed and about
10 years before Microsoft anything supported TCP/IP.

You are aware that the Windows Sockets API was authored by 5 people, only
two of which were from Microsoft, the others being Martin Hall and Mark
Towfiq of Microdyne and Geoff Arnold of Sun Microsystems?

[DoN. Nichols]

On 2011-11-08, Bubba <nick...@banelli.biz.invalid> wrote:
> DoN. Nichols's log on stardate 08 stu 2011
>
>>> Hehe, well, I'd sacrifice longer compile time (that is, after all,
>>> "one time job") for faster run time.
>> With the tradeoff that if you are doing a lot of compiles in
>> debugging, the faster compile is a benefit until you are ready for
>> production. (So write your code so it will compile on both. :-)
>> Here is the comparison (using the old dhrystone benchmark) with
>> the two compilers on a Sun Blade 2000 with dual 1.2 GHz CPUs:
>
> /snip
>
>> So -- since gcc produced the faster run time (in this one very
>> limited benchmark), then the cc with Studio 12 must have been the
>> faster compile time.
>
> I survived compiling of PHP, Apache, MySQL, samba, GMP and several
> others on m68k 33MHz. :)

Similar -- but am quite glad to have faster systems these days. :-)

> (ATTN: may wrap)
> http://2.718281828459045235360287471352662497757247093699959574966967627.com/ddaveuptime.png

O.K. Not a Sun 68k system, then. :-)

> Trust me, there's nothing that can surprise me any more regarding speed
> of computation. :)

8 MHz Cosmos CMS-16/UNX running v7 unix port by Unisoft? Deadly
slow.

======================================================================
* MACHINE MICROPROCESSOR OPERATING COMPILER DHRYSTONES/SEC.
* TYPE SYSTEM NO REG REGS

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Cosmos 68000-8Mhz UniSoft cc 305 322 Report with this distribution
* Cosmos 68000-8Mhz UniSoft cc 365 394 - My machine (Plessy ram cards)

* ATT PC7300 68010-10Mhz UNIX 5.2 cc 1041 1111
* ATT PC7300 68010-10Mhz UNIX 5.2(3.51) cc 1066 1137

* Sun2/120 68010-10Mhz Standalone cc 1219 1315

* SUN 3/75 68020-16.67Mhz SUN 4.2 V3 cc 3333 3571
* Sun 3/180 68020-16.67Mhz Sun 4.2 cc 3333 3846
* SUN-3/160C 68020-16.67Mhz Sun3.0ALPHA1 Un*x 3333 4166

* Opus (SS1+ Clone) 4.1.3 gcc 2.7.2 36585 35714
* SS-10 4 Ross 33MHz CPUS SunOs 4.1.4 gcc 2.7.2.3 54545 53571
* SS-10 Dual 50MHz SuperCache Solaris 2.6 gcc 2.8.1 88235 90909
* SS-10 Sing 50MHz SuperCache Solaris 2.7 gcc 2.8.1 93750 90909
* SS-20 dual 50MHz It,TMS390Z50 Solaris 8 gcc 2.95.3 93750 93750
======================================================================

Run speeds, not compile times, but they are proportional. :-) These are
some of my personally-owned slower machines.

> That's why these machines sit in the basement and have SSH connections.
> So you let it compile in the morning, and come back after lunch - et
> voila! :)

O.K.

[ ... ]

> I will, when I remove machine phisicaly, since it is unberable loud. I
> must admit I don't recall such loud machine in quite some time...

Well ... it is designed to live, unattended mostly, in a
computer room with lots of industrial sized air conditioning running,
and lots of disk drives and other computers as well. They are more
interested in keeping the computers cool so they last a long time.
These are not made to be desktop machines, after all. :-)

>> Is the ALOM on the V440 a separate card, like the RCS on the Sun
>> Fire 280R?
>
> Yup.
>
>> If so, you can simply pull the card and get it all out of the way
>> until you have an installed OS, and then can reinstall the ALOM card
>> and clean the user list and associated passwords in there.
>
> I did that, but got no output from DB9 RS232 port (ttyb). Did I miss
> something?

Based on the RCS card for the Sun Fire 280R, the serial port is
an RJ-45 on the card bracket, along with another RJ-45 for 10BaseT
ethernet, and an RJ-13 (6-pin) for connecting a built-in modem to a
phone line. TTYA and TTYB are not used by the RCS, and likely by the
ALOM as well. Now the Sun Fire V120s which I have use TTYA as both the
(serial) console and the LOM control port. I've got a terminal server
which connects to six of these machines with a single ethernet jack on
it, so I don't have to cross-jumper a bunch of serial ports between
machines, and hope that at least one is alive when I need to control
another.

> Lack of quality hardware documentation about that server really
> frustrates me. You know like old Sun's had lots of info about switching
> jumpers to change from RS232 to RS422 and simmilar stuff, I can't find
> any refference about jumpers and hardware settings for V440.

I don't know about the V440 (no personal experience with it),
but I've been able to download service manuals for the Sun Fire 280R and
the Sun Fire V120 as well as Sun Blade 1000 and Sun Blade 2000. They
appear to still be there on the Oracle sites, but the necessary links to
them are nearly impossible to find on the Oracle web sites. Look using
Google or a similar search tool to find where the stuff is hidden.

A Google search for "sun v440 service manual" gives lots of
hits. The first three are:

Sun Fire V440 SErver Administration Guide

Sun Fire V440 Server Diagnostics and Troubleshooting guide

Sun Fire V440 Server Installation Guide

and a few deeper I find:

Sun Fire V440 Manual - Sun Fire User Manual Service Guide

And a search for "sun v440 ALOM" includes:

How to bypass ALOM password on a Sun Fire[TM] V210/V240/V250 ..

along with:

SOLARIS - Sun Advanced Lights Out Manager (ALOM) 1.6 ...

O.K. A link to an eBay auction for an ALOM card for the V440
shows two jacks -- the RJ-45 ethernet jack, and a "Serial MGMT" jack,
which looks like 6 or 4 pins.

> Sun Fire V440 Server Parts Installation and Removal Guide is somewhat
> close to what I seek, but I really don't need 20 pictures of how to
> remove memory from slot... :(

:-)

>> O.K. The initial install does not take that long, even with
>> manual repartitioning, but if you go into format and ask for a
>> destructive surface check, that will take forever with 72 GB or
>> larger disks. But for your purposes, just letting the initial
>> install do its newfs on each partition should be fine.
>
> Well, he's got whole week, since I have plenty of day (real) job to do,
> so actual fiddling with the machine will have to wait for the weekend

O.K.

>> If you really fear that such is there (and are worried about it
>> being there), then the format with the surface check option. O.K.
>> Here is the first menu in format:
>
> /snip
>
>> The "purge" choice would probably be the best one, and it will take
>> (by default) two passes, each with bit patterns which are the
>> compliment of the previous one. A third pass with yet another bit
>> pattern would be even better, if you have the time to spare. After
>> this, nobody except perhaps the intelligence agencies would be able
>> to show what was on there before. You can tune the bit patterns
>> among othe things with the "setup" menu entry.
>
> Great, thanks for thorough explanation. However, don't worry, after
> first change of data (bits), only dear God, Chuck Norris and time
> machine can whiteness what was on the hard drive. Everything else is
> just purely, plainly - bullshit.

Well ... the first change leaves borderline magnetic recordings
along at least one edge of the track -- perhaps as a function of varying
track alignment between write passes -- but it takes *serious* equipment
to analyze a disassembled drive to get this -- and somebody *really*
needs to want it. :-)

>>>> O.K. Looks like UK power cords. Nice Fluke meters.
>>> Nope, two times. :) It's Croatia (Schuko -
>> O.K. Certainly not US ones -- including based on the voltage
>> shown.
>
> That's right. :)
>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuko) and ammeter's noware near Fluke
>>> :D; but for el cheapo Ebay purchase, it does its job pretty well. :)
>> That is what matters. The voltmeter is a Fluke, though, is it
>> not? I've lost the URL so I can't go back and check.
>
> (ATTN: may wrap)
> http://2.718281828459045235360287471352662497757247093699959574966967627.com/Sun-V440-Power-Consumption.html

O.K. Not Fluke after all, but looks as though it may be similar
quality.

Good luck,

[Bartholomew]

ji...@specsol.spam.sux.com wrote:

I admire your patience with this Windows Weenie!

> Mostly that under X11 it is rare that someone has a real need for multiple
> monitors, especially these days with high resolution monitors.

I would disagree here. I am visually impaired and find two monitors
very helpful.

B.

[ji...@specsol.spam.sux.com]

Bartholomew <ba...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> ji...@specsol.spam.sux.com wrote:
>
> I admire your patience with this Windows Weenie!

It is obvious he hasn't a clue how any operating system supports graphic
displays.

>> Mostly that under X11 it is rare that someone has a real need for multiple
>> monitors, especially these days with high resolution monitors.
>
> I would disagree here. I am visually impaired and find two monitors
> very helpful.

Well, that's really a "special" case, but I see your point.

[Michael]

Hi,

On 11/09/11 12:03 AM, Bubba wrote:
> ji...@specsol.spam.sux.com's log on stardate 08 stu 2011
>
>>>>>> FWIW, I almost never use the IDE to compile, but it is well worth

<snip>

> Personally, I prefer multi monitor setup and have three Dell U2312HM
> LCDs on my desk. Last time I used Solaris (and it was 10, but some
> earlier iteration), it didn't even support multi monitor setup as
> Windows did, let alone have specialized tools (such as VS) that work
> flawlessly in such setup. Not to mention team collaboration and easy
> deployment for many platforms out of the box. Tools (for Windows
> programming primarily) such as MFC tracer, Spy++ and similar are quite
> useful and I haven't seen any of those in other IDE's (although they
> are in fact stand alone applications, but still). I must admit I can't
> think of any critical flaw in VS's debugger, and don't recall I have
> heard anyone complaining about it in general. Even OpenCL&CUDA
> debugging works like a charm. Many moons have passed since I used
> Solaris as a workstation...
>

Sorry for jumping in on your dbg discussion, but where have you been the
last 25 year, did you go direct from a VT100 to a PC :)
Multimonitor on Unix not working :) Windows supports it hahaha :)

By having this kind of statements all the rest you write will be taken
with a grain of salt(is that proper English BTW?).

I have not been on a Unix WS for 10 years myself, I left the big fat WS
for SunRays and you can a a few of these to one keyboard I promise you
that :)

/michael