Not bright future of Solaris x86
Jura
Don't get me wrong, I've been using it for a couple of years and in my
opinion it's really great OS. But as far as I can see it it has no real
future in UNIX market.
Who else is supposed to popularize the Solaris x86 if not it's own maker:
Sun and they don't do a good job of it in terms of application support.
I know, everybody will say: Sun's main goal is to sell more servers and they
sell Sparcs not Intel.
I must admit, I haven't been working on many Sparc servers, mainly on lower
platforms (small servers, and workstations). Why ? Because they are
enormously expensive ? At least compared to Intel based servers. And
frankly, Intel processors give much more speed/power for a much lower price.
If Sun is not interested in that segment of market, why do they even bother
to make Solaris x86 ?
Linux is a strong competitor too, but Sun fails to admit that.
I know very few people that would choose Solaris x86 in favor of Linux or
FreeBSD. I would !!!Solaris is a mature, well designed, scalable and most
important it's stable. It's much more stable than Linux right now and tt
scales much better. I have a Solaris server with almost 1000 users, and they
connect to Internet thru proxy, read emails, news, and that server is up and
running since the day it was installed (over a year now). I tried that with
Linux but haven't succeeded.
So why I'm complaining ? Simply because I don't see reason why Sun doesn't
offer more their own applications for x86 platform.
Why there isn't Solaris Management Center program for x86, but only for
Sparc ? They all say it's only a question of recompiling.
Most of all, why there isn't a single iPlanet product made for x86 ? It's
really sad knowing who is the owner of iPlanet. They offer Linux, Windows,
AIX, HP-UX version but not Solaris x86. It must be really hard to
recomplile.
Don't get me start on x86 hardware compatibility list. Today it's really
hard to find a newer server that is supported by Solaris x86 HCL.
Instalation fails in most peculiar ways, but when I try to install Linux it
always succeeds. Maybe Sun should employ some Linux programmers to make
things better ?
Sun brags about millions of licences for Solaris. And I'm sure that 90% of
those licences is for x86.
Things would really improve if Sun would offer more their own programs for
that platform.
Sorry for sad ranting, it's maybe not the right time, but I couldn't resist.
happy new year and have a great time in new 2002,
Jura
Stuart Blake Tener
Another question for Sun might be:
If the fastest growing (in terms of yearly expansion) segment of
computer buyers is laptop purchasers, then one has to wonder why Sun is
unwilling to support laptop users? I personally (as a consultant, and as
many consultant I know do) depend specifically on my laptop both at the
office, at home, and on the road. So of course I use it for work! Linux
supports all the hardware I need, and sadly Solaris (which I prefer in some
but not all ways) would be nice to have. Alas, to do that I would have to
toss support for my 1394 controller maybe, my 15.1" LCD, 1600x1200 ATI M4
controller, support for my PCMCIA cards, support for my keyboard (I own an
Inspiron 8000, jab jab, wake up Sun on that one), support for my Sound card,
etc., etc., etc. Oh, almost forgot, Linux supports all that. And this from a
person whom still has some IPCs and SS2s laying around, because I used to be
into Suns that long ago.
Stuart
Beverly Hills, CA
"Jura" <juraj.m...@zap.hr> wrote in message
news:10097924...@internet.zap.hr...
Tom Dyess
market niche. Unarguably, Intel processors will give you more bang for your
buck at the low end, but what do you do when you have the largest amount of
the fastest processors intel produces? What's that, an 8 way 2ghz? What's
the maximum limit of an intel compatable board as far as memory goes? 4
gigs? Maybe 8? What do you do then? The SPARC/Solaris market is for high end
systems for companies who make enough money to utilize them. Intel is great
for small - small/medium sized businesses, but when you need a large scale
solution, Intel just doesn't have it.
A little more insight on how well Sun has positioned itself in this market
is that Oracle develops on Solaris for it's UNIX architecture. Oracle
develops it's UNIX architecture before it's Windows architecture. With that
known, if you want the most solid implementation of Oracle (not that it is
very different between architectures, but for paranoia's sake), you should
run it on Solaris.
Concerning the reason for i386, I think that it is more to increase the
admin market; i.e. about 4 or 5 years ago, SPARC architectures were VERY
expensive - like 10 grand minimum. The average computer afficianado couldn't
afford to dabble with it thus curiosity was quelled. By introducing the i386
version, the average interested party could familiarize themselves with
solaris without spending the hefty funds it took to get a SPARC box (not to
mention the network it takes to really understand NIS, etc).
Furthermore, the i386 market is supersaturated. Why spend the money
marketing and developing an operating system for a market that isn't your
bread and butter? Look at the i386 market that's dominated by Microsoft (Im
not saying its a good thing, but it is a fact). Now Linux and ALL variants
are trying to compete with Microsoft on the technology level and with each
other on the Company level. Why beat yourself up on a market that already
has too many competators? As a consultant, I know Solaris, but am
uninterested in learning Linux because of a simple philosophy that I've
found to be true; Companies who run Linux pay less than companies who run
Solaris. That holds true for their servers AND their administrators. As a
business, I only have a single resource to sell, myself. I can only work one
job at a time (reasonably), so why spend my energy learning something that
doesn't pay as well as something else? I have the gray matter to learn
either (they aren't that much different), so why bother with Linux? (Nothing
against Linux, Im thrilled that MS has competition that it can't run out of
business theoretically).
Hope my counter-rant helps give you an idea of other thought processes.
Happy New Years, don't pass out in a ditch, it's cold out! ;)
Tom
"Jura" <juraj.m...@zap.hr> wrote in message
news:10097924...@internet.zap.hr...
Stefaan A Eeckels
"Stuart Blake Tener" <stu...@misty.com> wrote:
> Jura:
>
> Another question for Sun might be:
>
> If the fastest growing (in terms of yearly expansion) segment of
> computer buyers is laptop purchasers, then one has to wonder why Sun is
> unwilling to support laptop users? I personally (as a consultant, and as
> many consultant I know do) depend specifically on my laptop both at the
> office, at home, and on the road. So of course I use it for work! Linux
> supports all the hardware I need, and sadly Solaris (which I prefer in some
> but not all ways) would be nice to have. Alas, to do that I would have to
> toss support for my 1394 controller maybe, my 15.1" LCD, 1600x1200 ATI M4
> controller, support for my PCMCIA cards, support for my keyboard (I own an
> Inspiron 8000, jab jab, wake up Sun on that one), support for my Sound card,
> etc., etc., etc. Oh, almost forgot, Linux supports all that. And this from a
> person whom still has some IPCs and SS2s laying around, because I used to be
> into Suns that long ago.
And how much would you be prepared to pay for a copy of Solaris/x86?
Maybe as much as Windows XP Pro? Or would you in that case use Linux
anyway?
Unless you're Microsoft, and have Dell, Compaq/HP and all the other PC clone
makers eating out of your hand, it's darn difficult to make a living selling
an OS (witness Be). The biggest problem for Sun is that PC hardware makers
aren't interested in providing drivers for alternative operating systems, no
matter how easy Sun (or HP, or whomever) makes it. When HP used EISA in its
workstations, not _one_ maker of EISA cards delivered HP-UX drivers. When Sun
adopted PCI, hardly anyone (and certainly none(*) of the big players in the PC
market) produced Solaris drivers (which is about as easy as it gets, with the
modular architecture of both the OS and Xsun).
Why would Sun sink massive amounts of money supporting the forever changing
range of PC hardware (I mean, try buying the _same_ PC or laptop after six
months, it's almost impossible) unless they could reasonably expect a decent
return on investment?
(*) Unless Creative has finally released its sound card for SPARC. I signed up
for the thing when they announced it (April 2001), but I haven't heard anything
from them since then.
--
Stefaan (GPG Fingerprint 25D8 551B 4C0F BF73 3283 21F1 5978 D158 7539 76E4)
--
"Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which
could only have originated in California." --Edsger Dijkstra
Stefaan A Eeckels
"Jura" <juraj.m...@zap.hr> wrote:
> Really, what's the point of Solaris x86 ?
> Don't get me wrong, I've been using it for a couple of years and in my
> opinion it's really great OS. But as far as I can see it it has no real
> future in UNIX market.
Its future is probably in those shops that run SPARC and Intel kit and
want a uniform OS environment.
> Who else is supposed to popularize the Solaris x86 if not it's own maker:
> Sun and they don't do a good job of it in terms of application support.
> I know, everybody will say: Sun's main goal is to sell more servers and they
> sell Sparcs not Intel.
Correct. Sun is a hardware company, and one that (praise $DEITY) doesn't
see its future as yet another clone maker.
> I must admit, I haven't been working on many Sparc servers, mainly on lower
> platforms (small servers, and workstations). Why ? Because they are
> enormously expensive ? At least compared to Intel based servers. And
> frankly, Intel processors give much more speed/power for a much lower price.
> If Sun is not interested in that segment of market, why do they even bother
> to make Solaris x86 ?
> Linux is a strong competitor too, but Sun fails to admit that.
Making Solaris very cheap (US$75), about the price of a boxed Linux set,
is the best admission that they recognise the free Un*xen as competitors
on the Intel platform.
> I know very few people that would choose Solaris x86 in favor of Linux or
> FreeBSD. I would !!!Solaris is a mature, well designed, scalable and most
> important it's stable. It's much more stable than Linux right now and tt
> scales much better. I have a Solaris server with almost 1000 users, and they
> connect to Internet thru proxy, read emails, news, and that server is up and
> running since the day it was installed (over a year now). I tried that with
> Linux but haven't succeeded.
> So why I'm complaining ? Simply because I don't see reason why Sun doesn't
> offer more their own applications for x86 platform.
> Why there isn't Solaris Management Center program for x86, but only for
> Sparc ? They all say it's only a question of recompiling.
> Most of all, why there isn't a single iPlanet product made for x86 ? It's
> really sad knowing who is the owner of iPlanet. They offer Linux, Windows,
> AIX, HP-UX version but not Solaris x86. It must be really hard to
> recomplile.
As to applications, obviously there aren't enough people like you who
express an interest in buying Sun's or iPlanet's applications for Solaris/x86.
I don't know if Sun's market analysis is wrong, but I do believe they are
monitoring the market, and would invest in recompiling, testing and qualifying
their applications on Solaris/x86 _if_ there were a sufficient market.
> Don't get me start on x86 hardware compatibility list. Today it's really
> hard to find a newer server that is supported by Solaris x86 HCL.
> Instalation fails in most peculiar ways, but when I try to install Linux it
> always succeeds. Maybe Sun should employ some Linux programmers to make
> things better ?
Maybe programmers could write the drivers and offer them to Sun for a
reasonable price? Employing good driver writers isn't cheap, and I suppose
Sun might even have to pay companies like nVidia and Adaptec for the
programming specs of their advanced cards.
> Sun brags about millions of licences for Solaris. And I'm sure that 90% of
> those licences is for x86.
> Things would really improve if Sun would offer more their own programs for
> that platform.
But would Sun make enough money out of the exercise to cover their costs?
I can understand why they acquired Star and released StarOffice as
cheapware (free for the download, low price for a CD and a manual),
because it ensured the availability of a reasonable Office Suite on
Solaris/SPARC - something that Microsoft (obviously), Corel or Lotus
haven't done since the days of WordPerfect 5.0 for Unix.
I for one cannot see how Sun could ever make enough money out of
Solaris/x86 to justify much more than what they're doing now.
> happy new year and have a great time in new 2002,
Best wishes for a prosperous year of the Euro.
Chris Morgan
> Why would Sun sink massive amounts of money supporting the forever changing
> range of PC hardware (I mean, try buying the _same_ PC or laptop after six
> months, it's almost impossible) unless they could reasonably expect a decent
> return on investment?
I have two objections to this :
Firstly it's a straw man argument. Nobody is asking Sun to spend
"massive amounts of money supporting the forever changing range of PC
hardware".
To me it seems that the opposite situation is a more accurate
description : spending very little money and supporting very little PC
hardware.
The reason this is wrong in my view relates to my second objection :
a "decent return on investment" on such a project is very open to
interpretation : what exactly is the return defined to be?
The obvious aim of things like the Blade 100 and Solaris x86 is to
prop up the Solaris platform as a whole (i.e. the steady flow of
software for it) by removing the barriers to entry for developers, so
that Sun can sell more Blade 1000s, Netras, SunFire and Enterprise
boxes, together with the associated licenses, storage, ram etc
etc. They're pretty much loss leaders i.e. you spend money on them to
make money elsewhere.
To take a somewhat different example, I'm pretty certain that
Microsoft could charge a lot more for Visual Studio Standard Ed. to
make a (more than) decent return on investment. There's a good reason
for their immense succcess, however, which a quick perusal of pricing
for that product vs., say, Forte C++ Personal Ed. will quickly
reveal. If you don't price your products to sell, all other discussion
on their merits is moot.
--
Chris Morgan
Jan David
news:10097924...@internet.zap.hr...
> Really, what's the point of Solaris x86 ?
There isn't any... Solaris on x86 is an archaism, it's a left-over from the
PC wars of the 80's ..
If you 're running Solaris on PC hardware, then there really is no point in
sticking to the x86 version. Nowadays, you can buy a Sun workstation for
$1500, about the same price as a high-end PC and you'll have at least the
same processing capacity .. so why does anyone want to use x86 Solaris ?
> And
> frankly, Intel processors give much more speed/power for a much lower
price.
> If Sun is not interested in that segment of market, why do they even
bother
> to make Solaris x86 ?
Don't be tricked by clockspeeds. Sun uses a RISC architecure while Intel
uses CISC .. you can't compare those one to one. It''s true though that the
cost of a SPARC processor is usually much higher. That's just a simple
matter of volume ... PC's sell a lot more that Sun boxes.
> Linux is a strong competitor too, but Sun fails to admit that.
> I know very few people that would choose Solaris x86 in favor of Linux or
> FreeBSD. I would !!!Solaris is a mature, well designed, scalable and most
> important it's stable. It's much more stable than Linux right now and tt
> scales much better. I have a Solaris server with almost 1000 users, and
they
> connect to Internet thru proxy, read emails, news, and that server is up
and
> running since the day it was installed (over a year now). I tried that
with
> Linux but haven't succeeded.
Cheap hardware goes with a cheap OS, I say - so if the given platform is PC
hardware, then go with Linux - it's the best supported PC OS besides
Microsoft.
It's not my goal here to bring you down, really ! If you like the stability
and ruggedness of Solaris, then make the move to SPARC, it doesn't have to
cost you much. If you can afford PC hardware, then you can affort a Sun
workstation (nowadays). Most importantly, you'll be able to run all those
top business applications and databases written for Solaris.
Suppose you really can afford new hardware right now, why don't you compile
GNU stuff for your machine ? There is so much GNU stuff written for Linux
that compiles perfectly on Solaris with just a few minor adjustments. I run
everything from DVD-players, Microsoft Terminal emulators (SBC - rdesktop),
GNOME, you name it ...
If you need a database, use MySQL, etc ... If on the other hand you want to
run the "enterprise" databases like Oracle or Sybase, then I'm afraid you're
going to have to give up the Mickey mouse operating systems like Solaris x86
...
Anyway, happy newyear a may your server run happily for another year ;-)
Jan
Chris Morgan
> Don't be tricked by clockspeeds. Sun uses a RISC architecure while Intel
> uses CISC .. you can't compare those one to one.
yes, that's right, since if intel were truly still CISC now, then the
natural consequence would be that they get more work done per
instruction ("complex instruction set"). Then if you compared
clockspeed you'd conclude that Intel was incredibly far ahead of Sun.
The reality is that RISC and CISC are useless terms for this debate.
Sun's "RISC" chips now do more work per clock cycle than Intel's
"CISC" chips. This is because the CISC-nature of Intel's instruction
set breaks down inside the chip when it translates CISC instructions
into micro-ops which it feeds through a highly pipelined execution
core. Only micro-ops are executed at anything like
one-per-clock-cycle. This extreme pipelining is controversial, but at
2.2GHz (for sale right now), their chips have comparable performance
to the best that anyone else has to offer, especially Sun which hasn't
yet bettered 1GHz in shipping chips.
--
Chris Morgan
Bruce Porter
Stuart Blake Tener wrote:
>
> Jura:
>
> Another question for Sun might be:
>
> If the fastest growing (in terms of yearly expansion) segment of
> computer buyers is laptop purchasers, then one has to wonder why Sun is
> unwilling to support laptop users? I personally (as a consultant, and as
> many consultant I know do) depend specifically on my laptop both at the
> office, at home, and on the road. So of course I use it for work! Linux
I work for Sun, I use a laptop with X86 on, and *I* can't get support !
--
Bruce
######################################################
# The internet is a huge and diverse community and #
# not every one is friendly" #
# http://www.ytc1.co.uk #
######################################################
Bruce Porter
Chris Morgan wrote:
>
> Stefaan A Eeckels <Stefaan...@ecc.lu> writes:
>
> > Why would Sun sink massive amounts of money supporting the forever changing
> > range of PC hardware (I mean, try buying the _same_ PC or laptop after six
> > months, it's almost impossible) unless they could reasonably expect a decent
> > return on investment?
>
> I have two objections to this :
>
> Firstly it's a straw man argument. Nobody is asking Sun to spend
> "massive amounts of money supporting the forever changing range of PC
> hardware".
>
One of the main contentions is the PCI-bridge, it seems to change from
laptop to laptop and unless a vendor is willing to write the driver then
we are stuffed.
There is now a sparc laptop on the market, unfortunatly it is a touch
expensive :={{
<snip>
Bruce Porter
>
> "Jura" <juraj.m...@zap.hr> wrote in message
> news:10097924...@internet.zap.hr...
>
> > Really, what's the point of Solaris x86 ?
>
> There isn't any... Solaris on x86 is an archaism, it's a left-over from the
> PC wars of the 80's ..
>
> If you 're running Solaris on PC hardware, then there really is no point in
> sticking to the x86 version. Nowadays, you can buy a Sun workstation for
> $1500, about the same price as a high-end PC and you'll have at least the
> same processing capacity .. so why does anyone want to use x86 Solaris ?
Because my SS10 does not fit in my briefcase ?
Alan Coopersmith
|So why I'm complaining ? Simply because I don't see reason why Sun doesn't
|offer more their own applications for x86 platform.
|Why there isn't Solaris Management Center program for x86, but only for
|Sparc ? They all say it's only a question of recompiling.
Creating the application binary may be a simple matter of recompiling,
but truly supporting a platform takes far more than just producing
binaries. You need QA/testing & support, which each requires a large
range of the supported hardware. Especially with the cutbacks made
recently, everything is under close scrutiny, and if there aren't enough
sales of an iPlanet or other unbundled product on a platform to support
the salaries & overhead of supporting that platform, there has to be a
really good reason to decide to continue losing money on that product.
--
________________________________________________________________________
Alan Coopersmith al...@alum.calberkeley.org
http://soar.Berkeley.EDU/~alanc/ aka: Alan.Coo...@Sun.COM
Working for, but definitely not speaking for, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Steve Kappel
>Jan David wrote:
>>
>> "Jura" <juraj.m...@zap.hr> wrote in message
>> news:10097924...@internet.zap.hr...
>>
>> > Really, what's the point of Solaris x86 ?
>>
>> There isn't any... Solaris on x86 is an archaism, it's a left-over from the
>> PC wars of the 80's ..
>>
>> If you 're running Solaris on PC hardware, then there really is no point in
>> sticking to the x86 version. Nowadays, you can buy a Sun workstation for
>> $1500, about the same price as a high-end PC and you'll have at least the
>> same processing capacity .. so why does anyone want to use x86 Solaris ?
>
>Because my SS10 does not fit in my briefcase ?
I also use x86 exclusively for portable use. There is a huge value for
those of us that have piles of SPARC Solaris everywhere else to have
the same environment on a notebook.
This seems counter to Sun's approach of no longer supporting notebooks.
I understand their situation completely and would do the same myself.
There are 3rd party approaches to notebook graphics: Xig and the recent
XFree drivers for Xsun. But that only goes so far. I'm restricted to
10baseT network because of poor PCMCIA support. 802.11b wireless
card won't work even with a 3rd party driver that claims to support
it. In short, Intel-based hardware sucks.
What I really want is similar features in a SPARC notebook at similar
cost. I'd dump my Intel notebook in a second. Maybe there is hope,
http://www.naturetech.com.tw/
but it is yet to be seen how much this will cost in the US. Sun
should resell these things. GIVE US A WAY OUT of the Intel world!
YTC#1
>
> In article <3C30AD9F...@ytc1.co.uk>, Bruce Porter wrote:
> >Jan David wrote:
> >>
> >> "Jura" <juraj.m...@zap.hr> wrote in message
> >> news:10097924...@internet.zap.hr...
> >>
> >> > Really, what's the point of Solaris x86 ?
> >>
> >> There isn't any... Solaris on x86 is an archaism, it's a left-over from the
> >> PC wars of the 80's ..
> >>
> >> If you 're running Solaris on PC hardware, then there really is no point in
> >> sticking to the x86 version. Nowadays, you can buy a Sun workstation for
> >> $1500, about the same price as a high-end PC and you'll have at least the
> >> same processing capacity .. so why does anyone want to use x86 Solaris ?
> >
> >Because my SS10 does not fit in my briefcase ?
>
>
> What I really want is similar features in a SPARC notebook at similar
> cost. I'd dump my Intel notebook in a second. Maybe there is hope,
> http://www.naturetech.com.tw/
> but it is yet to be seen how much this will cost in the US. Sun
> should resell these things. GIVE US A WAY OUT of the Intel world!
Think how I feel, I work for PS, but they will not supply me with one of
the naturetech jobs!
I have been told to "try again , when the market picks up"
--
Bruce Porter
"The internet is a huge and diverse community
and not every one is friendly"
http://www.ytc1.co.uk
Thomas Dehn
"Chris Morgan" <c...@mihalis.net> wrote:
> Stefaan A Eeckels <Stefaan...@ecc.lu> writes:
>
> > Why would Sun sink massive amounts
> > of money supporting the forever changing
> > range of PC hardware (I mean, try buying
> > the _same_ PC or laptop after six
> > months, it's almost impossible) unless
> > they could reasonably expect a decent
> > return on investment?
>
> I have two objections to this :
>
> Firstly it's a straw man argument. Nobody is asking Sun to spend
> "massive amounts of money supporting the forever changing range of PC
> hardware".
>
> To me it seems that the opposite situation is a more accurate
> description : spending very little money
> and supporting very little PC hardware.
Which 'very little PC hardware' would that be Sun should support?
It would not do anybody much good if Sun developed
the drivers to support a few specific portables, only to
notice that those portables are no longer available
once the drivers have been developed and tested.
And who would pay Sun for these drivers?
Wouldn't that be 'nobody'?
Thomas
YTC#1
Ahem ... 1050GHz :==}
--
Bruce Porter
XJR1300SP, XJ900F, GSX750W, GS550, GSX250, CB175
WUSS#1 , YTC#1(bar), OSOS#2 , DS#3 , IbW#18
Stuart Biggar
Steve Kappel wrote:
>
> In article <3C30AD9F...@ytc1.co.uk>, Bruce Porter wrote:
> >Jan David wrote:
> >>
> >> "Jura" <juraj.m...@zap.hr> wrote in message
> >> news:10097924...@internet.zap.hr...
> >>
> >> > Really, what's the point of Solaris x86 ?
> >>
> >> There isn't any... Solaris on x86 is an archaism, it's a left-over from the
> >> PC wars of the 80's ..
> >>
> >> If you 're running Solaris on PC hardware, then there really is no point in
> >> sticking to the x86 version. Nowadays, you can buy a Sun workstation for
> >> $1500, about the same price as a high-end PC and you'll have at least the
> >> same processing capacity .. so why does anyone want to use x86 Solaris ?
> >
> >Because my SS10 does not fit in my briefcase ?
>
> I also use x86 exclusively for portable use. There is a huge value for
> those of us that have piles of SPARC Solaris everywhere else to have
> the same environment on a notebook.
>
> This seems counter to Sun's approach of no longer supporting notebooks.
> I understand their situation completely and would do the same myself.
>
> There are 3rd party approaches to notebook graphics: Xig and the recent
> XFree drivers for Xsun. But that only goes so far. I'm restricted to
> 10baseT network because of poor PCMCIA support. 802.11b wireless
> card won't work even with a 3rd party driver that claims to support
> it. In short, Intel-based hardware sucks.
>
If you wish to run x86 on an Intel notebook, get one that has
an Intel ethernet chipset either integrated or on a miniPCI card.
The Intel/Xircom miniPCI card (ethernet part) in my IBM A21p works
fine at 100 Mbit. Juergen Keil's new versions of the ATI driver work
well on the Mobility M3 video chip (16 MB RAM and 1600x1200 pixel at
24-bit). OSS drives the Crystal Sound chipset. I haven't tried
wireless but the Lynnsoft Cardbus drivers work OK for me for a 256 MB
SanDisk CF card in a SanDisk PC card adapter and with a V.90 modem.
> What I really want is similar features in a SPARC notebook at similar
> cost. I'd dump my Intel notebook in a second. Maybe there is hope,
> http://www.naturetech.com.tw/
> but it is yet to be seen how much this will cost in the US. Sun
> should resell these things. GIVE US A WAY OUT of the Intel world!
Good luck running SPARC based chips on a battery and having any run
time. Recent Solaris 8 kernel patches at least include provisions
for the hlt instruction to cut down on power consumption (and fan
noise ;-)).
Stuart
Chris Morgan
> Ahem ... 1050GHz :==}
if they are shipping, they must move very slow. We ordered some, we
don't have them yet, we are a big customer (I think we have a starcat,
I know we have many 6800s,E10ks etc).
--
Chris Morgan
Timothy J. Lee
Jan David <jda...@skynet.be> wrote:
>If you 're running Solaris on PC hardware, then there really is no point in
>sticking to the x86 version. Nowadays, you can buy a Sun workstation for
>$1500, about the same price as a high-end PC and you'll have at least the
>same processing capacity .. so why does anyone want to use x86 Solaris ?
Perhaps because you already have a PC?
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy J. Lee
Unsolicited bulk or commercial email is not welcome.
No warranty of any kind is provided with this message.
Rich Teer
> Think how I feel, I work for PS, but they will not supply me with one of
> the naturetech jobs!
> I have been told to "try again , when the market picks up"
I really think Sun should develop their own SPARC based
laptop - a sequal to Voyager - and price it similarly
to Intel laptops. I.e., similar to the Naturetech one,
but with a UNIX keyboard layout, and about half the price.
Use the same cost cutting techniques as used the Sun Blade 100:
use PeeCee components where necessary (e.g., case, RAM and disks),
and use the UltraSPARC IIe (or UltraSPARC IIIi if it's cheap
enough). That way, we Solaris users have a realistic alternative
to Inetl laptops (I love my Voyager, but even with 80 MB of
RAM, the small (850 MB) hard drive and lack of Solaris 8 & 9
support make it harder (i.e., more frustrating) to use).
I think that if an affordable SPARC laptop were to become available,
a lot of the gripes with Solaris x86 become non-issues. Like
others have said, most places that use Solaris need hardware
that scales beyond the pathetic Intel attempts at scalability,
so Solaris on Intel isn't too important for them.
But I DO think that Solaris x86 should continue to be offered.
It lets people who want to run Intel servers use a decent OS,
and there's always the mindshare of potential future admins
who will try Solaris on their PCs.
I can see that the limited HCL can be frustrating, but if you
plan to run Solaris x86, maybe you should look at the HCL BEFORE
buying the hardware...
Have a great New Years, everyone.
--
Rich Teer . * * . * .* .
. * . .*
President, * . . /\ ( . . *
Rite Online Inc. . . / .\ . * .
.*. / * \ . .
. /* o \ .
Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638 * '''||''' .
URL: http://www.rite-online.net ******************
Rich Teer
> > yet bettered 1GHz in shipping chips.
>
> Ahem ... 1050GHz :==}
To be fair, Chris did say "shipping". Yeah, 1050 MHz US-III
has been announced but it's not currently orderable. I've just
looked on the Sun Blade 1000 order page, and (as Napoleon
might've said), "I see no (1.05 GHz) chips!"
Say hi to Paula Hammett for me, if she still works for Sun PS!
ultra...@hotmail.com
>> same processing capacity .. so why does anyone want to use x86 Solaris ?
>
>Because my SS10 does not fit in my briefcase ?
but a Sun Blade 100-equivalent does---
http://www.naturetech.com.tw/products.htm
too bad it costs so much!
ultra...@hotmail.com
>Good luck running SPARC based chips on a battery and having any run
>time.
why? the recent SPARC implementations (US2e and US3) have dynamic clock
speed control. they can slow _way_ down to reduce power consumption when
idle and speed right back up again when something cpu-intensive starts
running.
John D Groenveld
Jura <juraj.m...@zap.hr> wrote:
>Most of all, why there isn't a single iPlanet product made for x86 ? It's
x86 then they'll port it. But if you've got millions of dollars
to buy yet another "COTS" package with associated training and consulting
services then buying an Enterprise server is probably not a big deal.
John
groe...@acm.org
Philip Brown
>...
>Creating the application binary may be a simple matter of recompiling,
>but truly supporting a platform takes far more than just producing
>binaries. You need QA/testing & support, which each requires a large
>range of the supported hardware.
which they presumably HAVE ALREADY, seeing as how iPlanet supports
*LINUX*.
--
[Trim the no-bots from my address to reply to me by email!]
[ Do NOT email-CC me on posts. Pick one or the other.]
S.1618 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d105:SN01618:@@@D
The word of the day is mispergitude
Philip Brown
>...
>If you 're running Solaris on PC hardware, then there really is no point in
>sticking to the x86 version. Nowadays, you can buy a Sun workstation for
>$1500, about the same price as a high-end PC and you'll have at least the
not in integer performance.
>If you need a database, use MySQL, etc ... If on the other hand you want to
>run the "enterprise" databases like Oracle or Sybase, then I'm afraid you're
>going to have to give up the Mickey mouse operating systems like Solaris x86
>...
????
if solaris x86 is a "micky mouse operating system", then so is solaris
sparc. they are 95% the same OS.
Be consistent. If your point is "sparc hardware is better", then stick to
that. Saying solaris-intel is a worse operating system than solaris-sparc
doesnt make sense.
Alan Coopersmith
|> 2.2GHz (for sale right now), their chips have comparable performance
|> to the best that anyone else has to offer, especially Sun which hasn't
|> yet bettered 1GHz in shipping chips.
|
|Ahem ... 1050GHz :==}
You missed a very important decimal point in there. 1.050GHz. 1050GHz
would be truly amazing at this time.
Jan David
"Bruce Porter" <y...@ytc1.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3C30AD9F...@ytc1.co.uk...
> Jan David wrote:
> >
> > "Jura" <juraj.m...@zap.hr> wrote in message
> > news:10097924...@internet.zap.hr...
> >
> > > Really, what's the point of Solaris x86 ?
> >
> > There isn't any... Solaris on x86 is an archaism, it's a left-over from
the
> > PC wars of the 80's ..
> >
> > If you 're running Solaris on PC hardware, then there really is no point
in
> > sticking to the x86 version. Nowadays, you can buy a Sun workstation for
> > $1500, about the same price as a high-end PC and you'll have at least
the
> > same processing capacity .. so why does anyone want to use x86 Solaris ?
>
> Because my SS10 does not fit in my briefcase ?
>
> <snip>
That's an invalid argument. You're not going to run Sybase, Oracle or any
other major application on your laptop, are you ?
Basically, you want to have a similar environment on your laptop as on your
servers for convenience sake, right ?
Well, I run Linux on a laptop with the Gnome desktop, which incidently is
also the desktop environment of choice on our SPARC servers. That gives you
two environments which are very similar in feel and use. I know Linux isn't
the same as Solaris, but the're both unixes so don't tell me that you'll
have to "learn" Linux .. there is not much to learn if you're already an
experienced Solaris user..
One final note: it not just the geeks like me who install Gnome on Solaris
... Sun is going to offer Gnome out of the box on Solaris in the near future
as well. It was going to be included in Solaris 9, but now I hear this has
been delayed and it will probably appear in one of the later revisions (you
know, the 05/2002 or similar release ;-)
Cheers,
Jan
Jan David
"Philip Brown" <phi...@bolthole.no-bots.com> wrote in message
news:slrna31rh0....@bolthole.com...
> On Mon, 31 Dec 2001 18:34:25 +0100, jda...@skynet.be wrote:
> >...
> >If you 're running Solaris on PC hardware, then there really is no point
in
> >sticking to the x86 version. Nowadays, you can buy a Sun workstation for
> >$1500, about the same price as a high-end PC and you'll have at least the
> >same processing capacity...
>
> not in integer performance.
>
> >If you need a database, use MySQL, etc ... If on the other hand you want
to
> >run the "enterprise" databases like Oracle or Sybase, then I'm afraid
you're
> >going to have to give up the Mickey mouse operating systems like Solaris
x86
> >...
>
> ????
> if solaris x86 is a "micky mouse operating system", then so is solaris
> sparc. they are 95% the same OS.
> Be consistent. If your point is "sparc hardware is better", then stick to
> that. Saying solaris-intel is a worse operating system than solaris-sparc
> doesnt make sense.
Whether an OS is good or bad depends on many things. One important factor
(at least imho) is what you can do with it. I'm sure x86 Solaris is just as
fine as Sparc Solaris from a technical point of view .. but it's a lot less
useful ... that's why I refered to it as a Mickey mouse OS. No offence
intended for all the x86 fans ;-p
Paul Floyd
>"Jura" <juraj.m...@zap.hr> wrote in message
>news:10097924...@internet.zap.hr...
>
>> Really, what's the point of Solaris x86 ?
>
>There isn't any... Solaris on x86 is an archaism, it's a left-over from the
>PC wars of the 80's ..
>
>If you 're running Solaris on PC hardware, then there really is no point in
>sticking to the x86 version. Nowadays, you can buy a Sun workstation for
>$1500, about the same price as a high-end PC and you'll have at least the
>same processing capacity .. so why does anyone want to use x86 Solaris ?
I've not used any USIII machines, but my experience of with a 500MHz
PIII, 1.2GHz Athlon and 500MHz USII is that the USII comes a poor third
place for *both* cost and performance.
>> And
>> frankly, Intel processors give much more speed/power for a much lower
>price.
>> If Sun is not interested in that segment of market, why do they even
>bother
>> to make Solaris x86 ?
>
>Don't be tricked by clockspeeds. Sun uses a RISC architecure while Intel
>uses CISC .. you can't compare those one to one. It''s true though that the
>cost of a SPARC processor is usually much higher. That's just a simple
>matter of volume ... PC's sell a lot more that Sun boxes.
And don't be tricked by thinking that a RISC architecture offers any
significant advantage over later Pentiums. Don't be sucked in by
manufacturers benchmark figures either.
A bientot
Paul
--
Paul Floyd http://paulf.free.fr (for what it's worth)
Mail as URL, replace 1st . with @
What happens if you have lead in your pants as well as lead in your pencil?
Paul Floyd
>Stefaan A Eeckels <Stefaan...@ecc.lu> writes:
>
>> Why would Sun sink massive amounts of money supporting the forever changing
>> range of PC hardware (I mean, try buying the _same_ PC or laptop after six
>> months, it's almost impossible) unless they could reasonably expect a decent
>> return on investment?
>
>I have two objections to this :
>
>Firstly it's a straw man argument. Nobody is asking Sun to spend
>"massive amounts of money supporting the forever changing range of PC
>hardware".
>
>To me it seems that the opposite situation is a more accurate
>description : spending very little money and supporting very little PC
>hardware.
I have the impression that this is a reasonably pragmatic and successful
approach. Support the most common hardware (or at least, the most common
in a business environment): 3Com and Intel network cards, NVidia and
Matrox graphics cards, Adaptec and LSI SCSI adaptors and so on. The
major constructors rarely configure their kit with exotic equipment (I
won't say never, as they do sometimes go for an el cheapo option). Such
support (say 10% of the kit on the market) probably gives 50% coverage.
If on top of that either the hardware OEM or some other 3rd party like
OSS or XFree86 adds support for other hardware, so much the better.
[snip - low cost entry point]
>To take a somewhat different example, I'm pretty certain that
>Microsoft could charge a lot more for Visual Studio Standard Ed. to
>make a (more than) decent return on investment. There's a good reason
>for their immense succcess, however, which a quick perusal of pricing
>for that product vs., say, Forte C++ Personal Ed. will quickly
>reveal. If you don't price your products to sell, all other discussion
>on their merits is moot.
Isn't MSVC++ Standard Ed a version that is crippled, without an
optimizing compiler? It's probably OK for learning how to use VC++ and
MFC, but not for developing commercial software.
OTOH I do think that Forte is way overpriced, especially considering the
cost of its main competitor (gcc).
Paul Floyd
>Really, what's the point of Solaris x86 ?
The point is that it's really good for feeding trolls.
Chris Morgan
> Isn't MSVC++ Standard Ed a version that is crippled, without an
> optimizing compiler? It's probably OK for learning how to use VC++ and
> MFC, but not for developing commercial software.
Think about the situation where you have VC++ Enterprise at work, and
you want to fiddle with some of your code. You can at least start low
and build up. With Sun you start at $1895
>
> OTOH I do think that Forte is way overpriced, especially considering the
> cost of its main competitor (gcc).
Exactly. Forte is actually better at some stuff (as it happens stuff I
need) but the price is pretty out of whack
--
Chris Morgan <cm at mihalis.net> http://www.mihalis.net
Temp sig. - Enquire within
YTC#1
You *think* you have a Starcat ? Either you have an F15k or not.If you
had one you owuld
a) Know
b) be lucky :=)
I think the 1050 is due to ship Jan or Feb
YTC#1
>
> y...@ytc1.co.uk writes in comp.unix.solaris:
> |> 2.2GHz (for sale right now), their chips have comparable performance
> |> to the best that anyone else has to offer, especially Sun which hasn't
> |> yet bettered 1GHz in shipping chips.
> |
> |Ahem ... 1050GHz :==}
>
> You missed a very important decimal point in there. 1.050GHz. 1050GHz
> would be truly amazing at this time.
<g>
YTC#1
>
> On Mon, 31 Dec 2001, YTC#1 wrote:
>
> > > yet bettered 1GHz in shipping chips.
> >
> > Ahem ... 1050GHz :==}
>
> To be fair, Chris did say "shipping". Yeah, 1050 MHz US-III
> has been announced but it's not currently orderable. I've just
> looked on the Sun Blade 1000 order page, and (as Napoleon
> might've said), "I see no (1.05 GHz) chips!"
>
> Say hi to Paula Hammett for me, if she still works for Sun PS!
>
I can check, but I am UK based
--
Bruce Porter
YTC#1
>
> On Mon, 31 Dec 2001, YTC#1 wrote:
>
> > Think how I feel, I work for PS, but they will not supply me with one of
> > the naturetech jobs!
> > I have been told to "try again , when the market picks up"
>
> I really think Sun should develop their own SPARC based
> laptop - a sequal to Voyager - and price it similarly
> to Intel laptops. I.e., similar to the Naturetech one,
> but with a UNIX keyboard layout, and about half the price.
>
Try sc...@sun.com :=}
<snip>
>
> But I DO think that Solaris x86 should continue to be offered.
> It lets people who want to run Intel servers use a decent OS,
> and there's always the mindshare of potential future admins
> who will try Solaris on their PCs.
AOL
YTC#1
>
> "Bruce Porter" <y...@ytc1.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:3C30AD9F...@ytc1.co.uk...
> > Jan David wrote:
> > >
> > > "Jura" <juraj.m...@zap.hr> wrote in message
> > > news:10097924...@internet.zap.hr...
> > >
> > > > Really, what's the point of Solaris x86 ?
> > >
> > > There isn't any... Solaris on x86 is an archaism, it's a left-over from
> the
> > > PC wars of the 80's ..
> > >
> > > If you 're running Solaris on PC hardware, then there really is no point
> in
> > > sticking to the x86 version. Nowadays, you can buy a Sun workstation for
> > > $1500, about the same price as a high-end PC and you'll have at least
> the
> > > same processing capacity .. so why does anyone want to use x86 Solaris ?
> >
> > Because my SS10 does not fit in my briefcase ?
> >
> > <snip>
>
> That's an invalid argument. You're not going to run Sybase, Oracle or any
> other major application on your laptop, are you ?
Or on an X86 PC.
I use my laptop for connectivity, jumpstart , script writing and general
productivity (SodOffice etc)
> Basically, you want to have a similar environment on your laptop as on your
> servers for convenience sake, right ?
Yes, I think I can see what is coming.
>
> Well, I run Linux on a laptop with the Gnome desktop, which incidently is
Ahah , Linux again
> also the desktop environment of choice on our SPARC servers. That gives you
Nice for you.
> two environments which are very similar in feel and use. I know Linux isn't
> the same as Solaris, but the're both unixes so don't tell me that you'll
Err, its not *exactly* unix :=}
> have to "learn" Linux .. there is not much to learn if you're already an
> experienced Solaris user..
Hey, I have used linux, it is very BSD and I can get by with it. But I
prefer Solaris.
>
> One final note: it not just the geeks like me who install Gnome on Solaris
> ... Sun is going to offer Gnome out of the box on Solaris in the near future
People at Sun use Gnome on thier desktops.
Steve Kappel
>Steve Kappel wrote:
>> There are 3rd party approaches to notebook graphics: Xig and the recent
>> XFree drivers for Xsun. But that only goes so far. I'm restricted to
>> 10baseT network because of poor PCMCIA support. 802.11b wireless
>> card won't work even with a 3rd party driver that claims to support
>> it. In short, Intel-based hardware sucks.
>
>If you wish to run x86 on an Intel notebook, get one that has
>an Intel ethernet chipset either integrated or on a miniPCI card.
>The Intel/Xircom miniPCI card (ethernet part) in my IBM A21p works
>fine at 100 Mbit. Juergen Keil's new versions of the ATI driver work
>well on the Mobility M3 video chip (16 MB RAM and 1600x1200 pixel at
>24-bit). OSS drives the Crystal Sound chipset. I haven't tried
>wireless but the Lynnsoft Cardbus drivers work OK for me for a 256 MB
>SanDisk CF card in a SanDisk PC card adapter and with a V.90 modem.
I have a Toshiba Tecra 8100. Tecra's have always been a good choice
for Solaris x86. I had a Tecra 510CDT before that running Solaris.
I have a supported ethernet card. I have the Xig driver. I've tried
the Lynnsoft driver for wireless with no luck - they report other
customers have similar problems on recent Tecra's. I've tried
OSS with no luck.
Lynnsoft and Xig both have the same problem - they beg for hardware
because the PC market can't standardize on a small number of
variations. Everybody has to make their own incompatible crap
(at multiple levels - even PCI bridges).
You can't expect driver makers to buy every stinking model or the
vendors to provide boxes for such a small market share. By the
time they do find "popular" hardware and get a driver that hardware
is obsolete.
Then there is the fact that Lynnsoft has to provide replacements
for standard Solaris drivers (pcic, pcelx, pcser, pcmcia, cis, cs).
Now which version of Solaris, which maintenance update, which patch
are they compatibe with? Seems to me this is a losing game.
Assuming all these things could be resolved for Solaris 8 then
we get to go through most of them again for Solaris 9 and ...
The bottom line is that Solaris x86 on intel notebooks is never
going to be as smooth as it should be. When was the last time
you installed Solaris on a SPARC box and had to screw around
with separate drivers??
Steve Kappel
How much do these 3 models cost? US$ Aren't they significantly less
than Tadpole/RDI (which are $15K+)?
Where can they be purchased in US?
Won't the price come down as the volume goes up?
Steve Kappel
>if solaris x86 is a "micky mouse operating system", then so is solaris
>sparc. they are 95% the same OS.
>Be consistent. If your point is "sparc hardware is better", then stick to
>that. Saying solaris-intel is a worse operating system than solaris-sparc
>doesnt make sense.
Solaris x86 itself is not micky mouse. Intel-based hardware is
micky mouse and anything that runs on top of it is equally crippled.
Video and network is base functionality and it is frequently a royal
pain on x86.
Philip Brown
>...
>That's an invalid argument. You're not going to run Sybase, Oracle or any
>other major application on your laptop, are you ?
I know people who DO run oracle on their solaris laptop.
After all, you can get by with 256 megs of ram for an oracle server
(kinda), and nowadays, it is not uncommon for laptops to have 512 megs of
RAM or higher.
Drazen Kacar
> One final note: it not just the geeks like me who install Gnome on Solaris
You don't get a geek title if you only install it. How about writing some
code?
--
.-. .-. Unlike good wine, bullshit doesn't improve with age.
(_ \ / _) -- John McLean
| da...@willfork.com
|
Steve Kappel
>That's an invalid argument. You're not going to run Sybase, Oracle or any
>other major application on your laptop, are you ?
>Basically, you want to have a similar environment on your laptop as on your
>servers for convenience sake, right ?
If you are part of a company that has product that runs on Oracle or
Sybase you sure are very interested in running on a laptop!
>Well, I run Linux on a laptop with the Gnome desktop, which incidently is
>also the desktop environment of choice on our SPARC servers. That gives you
>two environments which are very similar in feel and use. I know Linux isn't
>the same as Solaris, but the're both unixes so don't tell me that you'll
>have to "learn" Linux .. there is not much to learn if you're already an
>experienced Solaris user..
An experienced Solaris user is using CDE.
I can't claim to be an expert with Gnome but I'd be very comfortable
betting that it isn't as full-featured, stable, and out-of-the-box
as CDE is.
I know one can get CDE for Linux - for a price.
>One final note: it not just the geeks like me who install Gnome on Solaris
>... Sun is going to offer Gnome out of the box on Solaris in the near future
>as well. It was going to be included in Solaris 9, but now I hear this has
>been delayed and it will probably appear in one of the later revisions (you
>know, the 05/2002 or similar release ;-)
Sun should be taken out in the street and shot for this one.
I'm surprised they haven't invented their own Java snail desktop
environment.
As someone who developed GUI software through the SunView, NeWS,
OpenLook, Motif, CDE wars it was a beautiful thing when you could
finally write one application for all "Unix desktops".
It really makes me mad when I see what sounds like a cool freeware
application only to read down the list of requirements and get
tangled up in needing GTK, Gnome, KDE, or whatever. Same fragmentation
crap that we had in Unix for the first 15 years. FINALLY everyone
gets (most) of it figured out - now we start fragmenting all over
again. Obviously many have not learned from the mistakes of the past.
Rich Teer
> Well, I run Linux on a laptop with the Gnome desktop, which incidently is
> also the desktop environment of choice on our SPARC servers. That gives you
You run GNOME on your SERVERs?! Must be a Linux thing...
Joerg Schilling
>opinion it's really great OS. But as far as I can see it it has no real
>future in UNIX market.
>Who else is supposed to popularize the Solaris x86 if not it's own maker:
>Sun and they don't do a good job of it in terms of application support.
>I know, everybody will say: Sun's main goal is to sell more servers and they
>sell Sparcs not Intel.
But Solaris x86 is used on 15000 PC's in a part of the German government,
the Oberfinanzdirektion Niedersachsen (12000 PCs and 3000 Notebooks).
Would you call this not popular?
--
EMail:jo...@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
j...@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) If you don't have iso-8859-1
schi...@fokus.gmd.de (work) chars I am J"org Schilling
URL: http://www.fokus.gmd.de/usr/schilling ftp://ftp.fokus.gmd.de/pub/unix
Rich Teer
> I can check, but I am UK based
So was I - in Farnborough (and Watchmoor Park and Slough).
I imagine you guys have moved to the new Sun Campus off
Junction 4a(?) of the M3 by now...
Rich Teer
> > But I DO think that Solaris x86 should continue to be offered.
> > It lets people who want to run Intel servers use a decent OS,
> > and there's always the mindshare of potential future admins
> > who will try Solaris on their PCs.
>
> AOL
? Huh?
Dave Uhring
> On Tue, 1 Jan 2002, Jan David wrote:
>
>> Well, I run Linux on a laptop with the Gnome desktop, which
>> incidently is also the desktop environment of choice on our SPARC
>> servers. That gives you
>
> You run GNOME on your SERVERs?! Must be a Linux thing...
>
Nahh. That is purely a windows thing. Their OS won't run without a
desktop. My servers don't even have monitors attached to them, whether
they be Linux, BSD or Solaris.
Alan Coopersmith
|On Mon, 31 Dec 2001 18:54:09 +0000 (UTC), al...@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU wrote:
|>...
|>Creating the application binary may be a simple matter of recompiling,
|>but truly supporting a platform takes far more than just producing
|>binaries. You need QA/testing & support, which each requires a large
|>range of the supported hardware.
|
|which they presumably HAVE ALREADY, seeing as how iPlanet supports
|*LINUX*.
The expensive part is the additional people needed for the work. (And
you often can't share the hardware if you want the testing done on the
needed schedules, even if the supported hardware is the same.)
ultra...@hotmail.com
>> http://www.naturetech.com.tw/products.htm
>>
>>too bad it costs so much!
>How much do these 3 models cost? US$ Aren't they significantly less
>than Tadpole/RDI (which are $15K+)?
the one i wanted was US$8k, the slightly slower one is US$6k. that was
back when they had only the two models. note the lack of pcmcia slots
unless they've added them recently.
>Where can they be purchased in US?
send them mail, they're very responsive but there is a bit of a language
barrier so be very clear in your questions.
>Won't the price come down as the volume goes up?
what makes you think the volume is going to go up?
Jan David
"Drazen Kacar" <da...@willfork.com> wrote in message
news:slrna3477...@raven.arsdigita.de...
Jan David
"Rich Teer" <ri...@rite-group.com> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.33.020101...@mars.rite-group.com...
Obviously, the servers don't have screens or keyboards, but the admin's all
use Gnome as theír prefered desktop.
As far as running major databases on laptops: it's not because you can that
it is useful... can't really see the point in doing that ...
Jan
Jan David
"Paul Floyd" <pa...@bisanne.free.fr> wrote in message
news:slrna32ud...@bisanne.free.fr...
-wiseguy
news:3c324ab3$0$75159$ba62...@news.skynet.be:
>
> "Rich Teer" <ri...@rite-group.com> wrote in message
> news:Pine.GSO.4.33.020101...@mars.rite-group.com...
>> On Tue, 1 Jan 2002, Jan David wrote:
>>
>> > Well, I run Linux on a laptop with the Gnome desktop, which incidently
>> > is also the desktop environment of choice on our SPARC servers. That
>> > gives you
>>
>> You run GNOME on your SERVERs?! Must be a Linux thing...
>>
>> --
>> Rich Teer . * * . * .* .
>> . * . .*
>> President, * . . /\ ( . . *
>> Rite Online Inc. . . / .\ . * .
>> .*. / * \ . .
>> . /* o \ .
>> Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638 * '''||''' .
>> URL: http://www.rite-online.net ******************
>
>
> Obviously, the servers don't have screens or keyboards, but the admin's all
> use Gnome as theír prefered desktop.
>
> Jan
Hmmm...
LONG LIVE CDE!!! There should be a law against contaminating Solaris with
GNOME.
I have really grown to dislike GNOME and KDE. On a real UNIX/Solaris machine
I'll stick with CDE, and on a Linux I'll keep on using fvwm for as long as I
can still get the code.
--
-wiseguy
slummin it in Colorado ski country, while watching the IT industry move
to India, and thinking about retraining as a Sanitation Engineer
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
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Chris Morgan
> You *think* you have a Starcat ? Either you have an F15k or not.If you
> had one you owuld
>
> a) Know
> b) be lucky :=)
Well, you know, I know a guy who deals with our big hardware, but I
don't work with him, so I go and chat every now and then. One year
ago, I went and actually saw an actual Blade 1000 under his desk when
that was a rare sight, but the big stuff is all in a different
building, and i wouldn't get told about or have an account on the
starcat even if it was now in production. Nevertheless, I'll find out,
just you wait and see.
>
> I think the 1050 is due to ship Jan or Feb
yes, I know, which is not the same as "shipping"
Chris Morgan
> It really makes me mad when I see what sounds like a cool freeware
> application only to read down the list of requirements and get
> tangled up in needing GTK, Gnome, KDE, or whatever. Same fragmentation
> crap that we had in Unix for the first 15 years. FINALLY everyone
> gets (most) of it figured out - now we start fragmenting all over
> again. Obviously many have not learned from the mistakes of the past.
It's just an illusion that things were stabilising on CDE. Right now
there are 10X or more developers using a unix-like OS developing
X-based appplications than there were in those days when CDE looked
like winning. CDE was never as good as KDE is already, and KDE is
_free_.
X itself has started changing again with things like the X Render
extension by Keith Packard, and the non-X-Consortium XFree now
challenging the "official" technology. Change is painful but healthy.
Chris
Geoff Lane
hardware.
Solaris on X86 platforms serves two purposes
a/ it allows a Windows-only policy company to try Solaris at
effectively zero cost by using a spare PC,
b/ it annoys Microsoft.
As the difference between SPARC and X86 Solaris is minor (< 5%), once
developed the continuing costs of X86 Solaris are very low (and it keeps the
kernel programmers honest.) The real problem is device drivers. Sun
offically support a very small range of devices (unoffically many unlisted
cards will work.) They should cooperate much more with Linux device driver
authors; perhaps creating a common driver model allowing Linux drivers to be
trivially ported to Solaris (both SPARC and X86 as many of the smaller SPARC
boxes use PCI bus now.)
--
Geoff Lane
BURY
01204 88 3193
Philip Brown
>...
>... The real problem is device drivers. Sun
>offically support a very small range of devices (unoffically many unlisted
>cards will work.) They should cooperate much more with Linux device driver
>authors;
You are very confused: most linux driver authors are fanatical about the
GPL. As such, they license all their stuff as GPL, and thus it is
incompatible with solaris, legally speaking. And even if it wasnt, the
linux people would not cooperate with "non-free OS" people, as they would
put it.
Now if you had said "cooperate more with BSD people", that would almost
have made sense... except that while BSD driver folks dont object to other
people using their driver code with other OS's... they rarely will go out
of their way to write the code FOR you :-)
>wont perhaps creating a common driver model allowing Linux drivers
>to be trivially ported to Solaris
Nothing about porting linux drivers is "trivial".
It obviously can be done in a somewhat more automated fashion, since the
now non-existant "linux network driver porting kit" did actually exist.
But if you are starting from scratch, it's far from trivial.
As I implied, any future effort for that sort of thing pretty much would
have to be a *BSD porting kit.
Stefaan A Eeckels
Chris Morgan <c...@mihalis.net> wrote:
> pa...@bisanne.free.fr (Paul Floyd) writes:
>
> > Isn't MSVC++ Standard Ed a version that is crippled, without an
> > optimizing compiler? It's probably OK for learning how to use VC++ and
> > MFC, but not for developing commercial software.
>
> Think about the situation where you have VC++ Enterprise at work, and
> you want to fiddle with some of your code. You can at least start low
> and build up. With Sun you start at $1895
>
> >
> > OTOH I do think that Forte is way overpriced, especially considering the
> > cost of its main competitor (gcc).
>
> Exactly. Forte is actually better at some stuff (as it happens stuff I
> need) but the price is pretty out of whack
If you buy it as a separate product. There are some excellent developer
deals available, so if you structure your development hardware/software
purchases, the effective cost of the Forte tools is less than that of
Visual Studio.
--
Stefaan (GPG Fingerprint 25D8 551B 4C0F BF73 3283 21F1 5978 D158 7539 76E4)
--
"Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which
could only have originated in California." --Edsger Dijkstra
Toomas Soome
> As the difference between SPARC and X86 Solaris is minor (< 5%), once
> developed the continuing costs of X86 Solaris are very low (and it keeps the
> kernel programmers honest.) The real problem is device drivers. Sun
> offically support a very small range of devices (unoffically many unlisted
> cards will work.) They should cooperate much more with Linux device driver
> authors; perhaps creating a common driver model allowing Linux drivers to be
> trivially ported to Solaris (both SPARC and X86 as many of the smaller SPARC
> boxes use PCI bus now.)
perhaps they should start with porting solaris x86 drivers to sparc at
first...
toomas
--
FOR SALE:
Parachute. Used once.
Never opened. Slightly Stained.
Bob Palowoda
> In article <10097924...@internet.zap.hr>,
> Jura <juraj.m...@zap.hr> wrote:
> >Really, what's the point of Solaris x86 ?
> >Don't get me wrong, I've been using it for a couple of years and in my
> >opinion it's really great OS. But as far as I can see it it has no real
> >future in UNIX market.
> >Who else is supposed to popularize the Solaris x86 if not it's own maker:
> >Sun and they don't do a good job of it in terms of application support.
> >I know, everybody will say: Sun's main goal is to sell more servers and they
> >sell Sparcs not Intel.
>
> But Solaris x86 is used on 15000 PC's in a part of the German government,
> the Oberfinanzdirektion Niedersachsen (12000 PCs and 3000 Notebooks).
>
> Would you call this not popular?
That being said only begins to describe the real issues with Solaris x86
popularity. You start adding up all the world goverment and
universities using Solaris x86 ignoring all the politically
correct/incorrect arguements and you numbers that are staggering.
The real issue may not have anything to do with the hardware
your running on your desktop but what to do with Solaris on
your desktop to begin with. The only bright future of Solaris on
Intel is you get great feedback from real people to improve
software applications that people have to touch and feel.
Where else are you going to get feedback on the "usablity" of
the Solaris desktop?
---Bob
Chris Morgan
> If you buy it as a separate product. There are some excellent developer
> deals available, so if you structure your development hardware/software
> purchases, the effective cost of the Forte tools is less than that of
> Visual Studio.
have you actually done this? I looked into it and tried to get
clarification on exactly who qualifies for what. No joy. Sun couldn't
tell me whether or not my company would qualify for the developer
connection bundle. We count as both an end-user and as a company that
develops software for end-users. In fact it's not even easy to
understand the definition of Solaris Developer Connection vs. Sun
Developer Connection. I think the hardware discounts with bundled
enterprise software collection is only available to "partners" but
it's really not clear.
--
Chris Morgan
Igor Sobrado
> OTOH I do think that Forte is way overpriced, especially considering the
> cost of its main competitor (gcc).
With a more reasonable price (and better again student discounts)
I will buy my own license of Forte (at least the C compiler, perhaps
the C++ too). But on Intel hardware, they should look for a way to
protect it using generic hostid numbers (I do not want to ask for a
new license if I reinstall the operating system from scratch and I do
not remember what file contains the encrypted host identification
number). As noted, with a more reasonable price (even free licenses
for non-commercial use) and a better protection scheme (use of the host
id sound good on SPARC hardware but it is a poor answer on Intel servers)
I will buy a license. It should be good if Sun offers at least the C and
C++ compilers.
Cheers,
Igor.
--
Igor Sobrado, UK34436 - sob...@acm.org
Steve Kappel
>In <slrna346eg....@isis.visi.com> ska...@isis.visi.com (Steve Kappel) writes:
>>> http://www.naturetech.com.tw/products.htm
>>>
>>>too bad it costs so much!
>
>>How much do these 3 models cost? US$ Aren't they significantly less
>>than Tadpole/RDI (which are $15K+)?
>
>the one i wanted was US$8k, the slightly slower one is US$6k. that was
>back when they had only the two models. note the lack of pcmcia slots
>unless they've added them recently.
Not bad compared to $15-$20k for Tadpole. Agree that it is going to
have to go alot lower for most people.
Lack of slots is an issue. Since it has builtin network I guess I'd
only miss a modem and wireless lan. On the other hand, my x86
Solaris notebook doesn't have a working modem or wireless lan either.
You wouldn't think building these would be hard to do. Most of the
components are the same used in modern SPARCs (other than the CPU
of course). I'm sure they just took their Intel design and modified.
>>Where can they be purchased in US?
>
>send them mail, they're very responsive but there is a bit of a language
>barrier so be very clear in your questions.
>
>>Won't the price come down as the volume goes up?
>
>what makes you think the volume is going to go up?
Well, I imagine they could take away whatever volume Tadpole/RDI
has!
If Sun would get off their butt and rebadge and sell/support them
I think there would be a market. Must have a US distributor.
Steve Kappel
>ska...@isis.visi.com (Steve Kappel) writes:
>
>> It really makes me mad when I see what sounds like a cool freeware
>> application only to read down the list of requirements and get
>> tangled up in needing GTK, Gnome, KDE, or whatever. Same fragmentation
>> crap that we had in Unix for the first 15 years. FINALLY everyone
>> gets (most) of it figured out - now we start fragmenting all over
>> again. Obviously many have not learned from the mistakes of the past.
>
>It's just an illusion that things were stabilising on CDE. Right now
>there are 10X or more developers using a unix-like OS developing
>X-based appplications than there were in those days when CDE looked
>like winning. CDE was never as good as KDE is already, and KDE is
>_free_.
By day I'm a professional software engineer. I use Solaris (sparc)
95% of the time. I've yet to see a commercial package using anything
other than Motif/CDE (or Java).
There are 1000X more developers developing Windblows or Java
applications - doesn't make it good. If that were the argument
then everybody developing unix X applications would be using Java.
At least that I could live with - since the runtime is on standard
Solaris distribution.
Bruce Jilek
Rich Teer <ri...@rite-group.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 1 Jan 2002, YTC#1 wrote:
>
>> > But I DO think that Solaris x86 should continue to be offered.
>> > It lets people who want to run Intel servers use a decent OS,
>> > and there's always the mindshare of potential future admins
>> > who will try Solaris on their PCs.
>>
>> AOL
>
>? Huh?
Exactly. What the heck is that supposed to mean?
Is somebody claiming that AOL uses solaris x86, or is AOL just YAT?
YAT = Yet Another TLA
TLA = Three Letter Acronym
--
Bruce Jilek ji...@olagrande.net Ola Grande Networks, Inc.
http://www.olagrande.net
Thomas Dehn
"Rich Teer" <ri...@rite-group.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 1 Jan 2002, YTC#1 wrote:
>
> > > But I DO think that Solaris x86 should continue to be offered.
> > > It lets people who want to run Intel servers use a decent OS,
> > > and there's always the mindshare of potential future admins
> > > who will try Solaris on their PCs.
> >
> > AOL
>
> ? Huh?
AOL is the official abbreviation for 'me, too'. Guess why ;-).
Thomas
Rich Teer
> AOL is the official abbreviation for 'me, too'. Guess why ;-).
That makes sense - thanks for clearing it up!
YTC#1
>
> YTC#1 <y...@ytc1.NOSPAM.co.uk> writes:
>
> > You *think* you have a Starcat ? Either you have an F15k or not.If you
> > had one you owuld
> >
> > a) Know
> > b) be lucky :=)
>
> Well, you know, I know a guy who deals with our big hardware, but I
> starcat even if it was now in production. Nevertheless, I'll find out,
> just you wait and see.
>
There arn't many out there yet, but you never know.
> >
> > I think the 1050 is due to ship Jan or Feb
>
> yes, I know, which is not the same as "shipping"
Its close though, isn't .9Ghz good enough ? :+}
--
Bruce Porter
XJR1300SP, XJ900F, GSX750W, GS550, GSX250, CB175
WUSS#1 , YTC#1(bar), OSOS#2 , DS#3 , IbW#18
"The internet is a huge and diverse community
and not every one is friendly"
http://www.ytc1.co.uk
YTC#1
>
> On Tue, 1 Jan 2002, YTC#1 wrote:
>
> > I can check, but I am UK based
>
> So was I - in Farnborough (and Watchmoor Park and Slough).
> I imagine you guys have moved to the new Sun Campus off
> Junction 4a(?) of the M3 by now...
Most have , but some of us are in Sale....
YTC#1
>
> On Wed, 2 Jan 2002, Thomas Dehn wrote:
>
> > AOL is the official abbreviation for 'me, too'. Guess why ;-).
>
> That makes sense - thanks for clearing it up!
>
Apologise, I thought most people were aware of that one.
YTC#1
>
> YTC#1 <y...@ytc1.NOSPAM.co.uk> inserted 25 cents, dialled 1-800-comp.unix.solaris and said...
<snip>
> >
> > People at Sun use Gnome on thier desktops.
>
> you might think i'm strange, but i actually prefer cde.
Not at all, I prefer OpenWindows myself.
Philip Brown
>...
>The real issue may not have anything to do with the hardware
>your running on your desktop but what to do with Solaris on
>your desktop to begin with.
presumably, the answer to that is, "run StarOffice", eh? :-)
dev...@fmi.mh.se
> Solaris x86 itself is not micky mouse. Intel-based hardware is
> micky mouse and anything that runs on top of it is equally crippled.
But what happens if someone (although extremely remote)
finds some decent PC hardware to run Solaris IA on?
I suppose it is still Micky Mouse.
Yeah right have it your way...
-- Sverker
All SPAM -> /dev/null
E-mail: Remove_thi...@fmi.mh.se
Chris Morgan
> > Well, you know, I know a guy who deals with our big hardware, but I
> <snip>
> > starcat even if it was now in production. Nevertheless, I'll find out,
> > just you wait and see.
> >
>
> There arn't many out there yet, but you never know.
Well, we have ours. Sun is still setting it up though.
>
> > >
> > > I think the 1050 is due to ship Jan or Feb
> >
> > yes, I know, which is not the same as "shipping"
>
> Its close though, isn't .9Ghz good enough ? :+}
As far as I know, even the 1050MHz chips still don't beat the fastest
Intel and AMD chips at many things, so I guess the answer is no.
Darren Reed
> Really, what's the point of Solaris x86 ?
An SMP Operating System with a thread library which doesn't suck or crash.
For serious multi-threaded and multi-cpu stuff, Solaris/x86 is the clear
winner on PC hardware.
Yes, Linux can do it, but with nowhere near the ability of Solaris.
Bob Palowoda
> On 2 Jan 2002 05:39:26 -0800, palo...@fiver.net wrote:
> >...
> >The real issue may not have anything to do with the hardware
> >your running on your desktop but what to do with Solaris on
> >your desktop to begin with.
>
> presumably, the answer to that is, "run StarOffice", eh? :-)
Cool maybe we can drop all the NT and Linux ports of StarOffice
and put more resources on improving the Solaris desktop versions.
More usb printer models, graphics tablets maybe some more
sound editing capablities for the presentation manager.
---Bob
James Lee
regarding Re: Not bright future of Solaris x86:
> Solaris x86 itself is not micky mouse. Intel-based hardware is
> micky mouse and anything that runs on top of it is equally crippled.
Mickey Mouse made a lot of money for Walt Disney.
This anti Intel attitude amazes me. e.g. Someone asks a question: "Why
does my program run slower on our super multi processor Sparc server than
my old P3?" Answers given are something like this: "You're forgetting the
Sparc has 64 bit MMU bridge to context switch over the IO bus". So what?
We don't care. The bottom line is for that job the Sparc is just slower!
The answer we were hoping for from the gurus was: "Have you set the
kernel parameter in /etc/dont/tell/the/customers to Speed=Fast".
For a single user on the desktop, an x86 Solaris machine is not just
perfectly adequate, it's faster *and* cheaper than the Sparc equivalent.
I use both Sparc and x86 and can do all the things I want on the x86. The
differences are really just curiosities to me. At boot time you see it,
but how often is that with Solaris? sys-suspend would be my first request
on x86 (particularly good for portables) but I understand you can't
suspend a Blade100 either.
I'm not making a judgement about what is best in a high load industrial
environment, I'm only justifying the x86 Solaris for use on my desktop to
allow use of a really good OS, at high speed, at an affordable price on
which I can work and easily develop software for a wider market.
James Lee.
James Lee
StarOffice 6.0 isn't available on x86 Solaris.
Neither is the latest OO641C nor the ODK.
Drazen Kacar
> Stefaan A Eeckels <Stefaan...@ecc.lu> writes:
>
> > If you buy it as a separate product. There are some excellent developer
> > deals available, so if you structure your development hardware/software
> > purchases, the effective cost of the Forte tools is less than that of
> > Visual Studio.
>
> have you actually done this?
I have.
> I looked into it and tried to get
> clarification on exactly who qualifies for what. No joy. Sun couldn't
> tell me whether or not my company would qualify for the developer
> connection bundle. We count as both an end-user and as a company that
> develops software for end-users.
Things have changed a bit, but I think currently the requirements are
lower than they were at the time I was looking into it. Basicaly, if you
get hardware with the developer discount, you can't use it for production
systems. You can use it for systems where you develop software, you can
use it for demoing the software and maybe something else related to
development. There's a license agreement which spells it out.
As far as eligibility is concerned, check
http://solutions.sun.com/apply/strategic_mem_elig.html
and related pages. If you think you can qualify, you don't have to call Sun.
Just fill the on-line form and wait a bit.
> In fact it's not even easy to understand the definition of Solaris
> Developer Connection vs. Sun Developer Connection.
I've never tried.
--
.-. .-. Unlike good wine, bullshit doesn't improve with age.
(_ \ / _) -- John McLean
| da...@willfork.com
|
Steve Kappel
James Lee wrote:
>On 01/01/02, 20:22:42, ska...@isis.visi.com (Steve Kappel) wrote
>regarding Re: Not bright future of Solaris x86:
>
>> Solaris x86 itself is not micky mouse. Intel-based hardware is
>> micky mouse and anything that runs on top of it is equally crippled.
>
>Mickey Mouse made a lot of money for Walt Disney.
Good for Mickey. Good for Intel that they make a lot of money. As long
as they don't go from 90% monopoly to 100% monopoly I could care less.
I've sent enough of my own money to Intel. I've suffered with
Solaris x86 since 2.6. It has been mediocre at meeting my needs
(notebooks). The benefit barely exceeds the hassle. If someone
offered me a better solution I'd be off Intel for good.
>This anti Intel attitude amazes me. e.g. Someone asks a question: "Why
>does my program run slower on our super multi processor Sparc server than
>my old P3?" Answers given are something like this: "You're forgetting the
>Sparc has 64 bit MMU bridge to context switch over the IO bus". So what?
>We don't care. The bottom line is for that job the Sparc is just slower!
>The answer we were hoping for from the gurus was: "Have you set the
>kernel parameter in /etc/dont/tell/the/customers to Speed=Fast".
Speed ain't everything. Face it, most desktops are beyond the
needs of most users. I consider how much of my time I spend on
administration a speed-impactor. Save a buck here and spend a
fortune there. Just like many things these days, hardware (including
sparc) is a cheap commodity - people are more and more expensive.
>For a single user on the desktop, an x86 Solaris machine is not just
>perfectly adequate, it's faster *and* cheaper than the Sparc equivalent.
I'm not trying to convince anyone that such a decision might not
be right for THEM. Just not right of me and lots of other people.
>I'm not making a judgement about what is best in a high load industrial
>environment, I'm only justifying the x86 Solaris for use on my desktop to
>allow use of a really good OS, at high speed, at an affordable price on
>which I can work and easily develop software for a wider market.
Whatever works for you. I would be more than happy to see Sun
put more into x86 so that I could be happy with it.
Rich Teer
> Speed ain't everything. Face it, most desktops are beyond the
> needs of most users. I consider how much of my time I spend on
Indeed: all machines idle at the same speed...
John D Groenveld
vaporware and the beta was withdrawn. Its yet to be seen if
there will be a 6.0 release for Solaris x86 or any other
platform under the Sun.
John
groe...@acm.org
dev...@fmi.mh.se
> Good for Mickey. Good for Intel that they make a lot of money. As long
> as they don't go from 90% monopoly to 100% monopoly I could care less.
> I've sent enough of my own money to Intel. I've suffered with
> Solaris x86 since 2.6. It has been mediocre at meeting my needs
> (notebooks). The benefit barely exceeds the hassle. If someone
> offered me a better solution I'd be off Intel for good.
I know I am.
(user and admin for mostly AMD Athlons;
and to be fair SPARC Ultra's as well)
Tom Dyess
stinky feet all over my desktop that bugs me. Just an aside.
Tom
"Jan David" <jda...@skynet.be> wrote in message
news:3c31ae41$0$33506$ba62...@news.skynet.be...
>
> "Bruce Porter" <y...@ytc1.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:3C30AD9F...@ytc1.co.uk...
> > Jan David wrote:
> > >
> > > "Jura" <juraj.m...@zap.hr> wrote in message
> > > news:10097924...@internet.zap.hr...
> > >
> > > > Really, what's the point of Solaris x86 ?
> > >
> > > There isn't any... Solaris on x86 is an archaism, it's a left-over
from
> the
> > > PC wars of the 80's ..
> > >
> > > If you 're running Solaris on PC hardware, then there really is no
point
> in
> > > sticking to the x86 version. Nowadays, you can buy a Sun workstation
for
> > > $1500, about the same price as a high-end PC and you'll have at least
> the
> > > same processing capacity .. so why does anyone want to use x86 Solaris
?
> >
> > Because my SS10 does not fit in my briefcase ?
> >
> > <snip>
>
> That's an invalid argument. You're not going to run Sybase, Oracle or any
> other major application on your laptop, are you ?
> Basically, you want to have a similar environment on your laptop as on
your
> servers for convenience sake, right ?
>
> Well, I run Linux on a laptop with the Gnome desktop, which incidently is
> also the desktop environment of choice on our SPARC servers. That gives
you
> two environments which are very similar in feel and use. I know Linux
isn't
> the same as Solaris, but the're both unixes so don't tell me that you'll
> have to "learn" Linux .. there is not much to learn if you're already an
> experienced Solaris user..
>
> One final note: it not just the geeks like me who install Gnome on Solaris
> ... Sun is going to offer Gnome out of the box on Solaris in the near
future
> as well. It was going to be included in Solaris 9, but now I hear this has
> been delayed and it will probably appear in one of the later revisions
(you
> know, the 05/2002 or similar release ;-)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Jan
>
>
>
>
Benny Kleykens
>
> YTC#1 <y...@ytc1.NOSPAM.co.uk> writes:
>
> > > Well, you know, I know a guy who deals with our big hardware, but I
> > <snip>
> > > starcat even if it was now in production. Nevertheless, I'll find out,
> > > just you wait and see.
> > >
> >
> > There arn't many out there yet, but you never know.
>
> Well, we have ours. Sun is still setting it up though.
>
> >
> > > >
> > > > I think the 1050 is due to ship Jan or Feb
> > >
> > > yes, I know, which is not the same as "shipping"
> >
> > Its close though, isn't .9Ghz good enough ? :+}
>
> As far as I know, even the 1050MHz chips still don't beat the fastest
> Intel and AMD chips at many things, so I guess the answer is no.
> --
Are you comparing 32 bit processors to 64 bit processors ?
Because :
a) AMD has no 64 bit processor on the market
b) Intel has Itanium but no real scaleability and not enough 64bit
applications to run on it.
Benny Kleykens
That's a bit pessimistic, isn't it ?
cjt
They sent out a survey a few weeks ago to beta testers asking lots of
questions about Star Office, including some regarding non-technical issues
like distribution. Maybe they're digesting those.
Bob Palowoda
> On Mon, 31 Dec 2001, YTC#1 wrote:
>
> > Think how I feel, I work for PS, but they will not supply me with one of
> > the naturetech jobs!
> > I have been told to "try again , when the market picks up"
>
> I really think Sun should develop their own SPARC based
> laptop - a sequal to Voyager - and price it similarly
> to Intel laptops. I.e., similar to the Naturetech one,
> but with a UNIX keyboard layout, and about half the price.
>
>
Maybe a little less than half the price. The Naturetech
is 8000.00. But than again if Sun manufacture one
for half the price what kind of message would that
give to IHV partners. I would suspect if you want
to deliver more volume you want either more IHV's
behind you or have the channels to fill the high
volume. I suppose single source from Sun could have
advantages from the value of the stock perspective
but than agian some purchasing policy on single
source may prevent sales. Depends if you need
a keyboard or video attached to your business
to stay viable in the market.
---Bob
dev...@fmi.mh.se
> Are you comparing 32 bit processors to 64 bit processors ?
> Because :
> a) AMD has no 64 bit processor on the market
> b) Intel has Itanium but no real scaleability and not enough 64bit
> applications to run on it.
You are right that Ultra II and above is very interesting,
especially for 64-bit computing. In scientific computing
we are hitting the 32 bit limits quite often.
SUN's compilers, performance libraries and high end
Ultra III's are clearly good. We already have
Enterprise's and many Ultra II's but they are quite
old now (333-400 mhz) so we will soon upgrade to Ultra III.
On the other hand many codes still run happily
in 32 bit mode. In such a situation an AMD
Athlon XP 2000+ with a gig ram or so (running
Solaris of course) and with tailored hardware is
often excellent as a workstation.
For big servers SPARC is the way to go.
YTC#1
>
> YTC#1 <y...@ytc1.NOSPAM.co.uk> writes:
>
> > > Well, you know, I know a guy who deals with our big hardware, but I
> > <snip>
> > > starcat even if it was now in production. Nevertheless, I'll find out,
> > > just you wait and see.
> > >
> >
> > There arn't many out there yet, but you never know.
>
> Well, we have ours. Sun is still setting it up though.
>
> >
> > > >
> > > > I think the 1050 is due to ship Jan or Feb
> > >
> > > yes, I know, which is not the same as "shipping"
> >
> > Its close though, isn't .9Ghz good enough ? :+}
>
> As far as I know, even the 1050MHz chips still don't beat the fastest
> Intel and AMD chips at many things, so I guess the answer is no.
You jest , of course.
While the chip cycle is slower, due to the design (and has been posted
here recently) the processor is far superior in scalability and
througput.
Richard L. Hamilton
Well, just a couple of issues I have:
* label generation could be better. Is there a way to fill a whole page
with repeats of a single label, and still be able to select the font to
use in it (w/o copy/paste or retyping)? In the US, an option for
PostNet barcode generation would also be great. Otherwise, I end up
rebooting one of my old boxes off an extra partition with Solaris 2.6 to
use an old SunPC board and Windows 3.1 with old copy of Avery LabelPro
to get what I want. To me, anything that reduces the attractiveness
of any version of Windows would be a big plus.
* With 5.2, I could get StarOffice to talk to Interbase via the old
Interclient driver (although that precludes use of some functionality
new to Interbase 6.x). The same sort of setup fails utterly on 6.0 beta,
unless I'm doing something really wrong.
--
mailto:rlh...@mindwarp.smart.net http://www.smart.net/~rlhamil
Rich Teer
> You jest , of course.
> While the chip cycle is slower, due to the design (and has been posted
> here recently) the processor is far superior in scalability and
> througput.
I admire Sun's technology as much as - if not more than - the next
guy, but even I have trouble swallowing the idea that a 1.05 GHz
UltraSPARC III would not be slower on 32-bit CPU bound stuff than
a 2 GHz+ Intel (or clone). 1.5 GHz MAYBE*, but 2 GHz seems to be
stretching credibilty. But as I don't have access to any suitabvle
systems, maybe I'll be pleasently surprised...
* Which, it has to be said, would be pretty damn impressive!
Chris Morgan
> You jest , of course.
I do not jest, of course.
> While the chip cycle is slower, due to the design (and has been posted
> here recently) the processor is far superior in scalability and
> througput.
The UltraSPARC-III has some features that support more scalability and
hence ultimately large systems with more aggregate throughput. That's
not the same as being competitive in the workstation market (say, 1-2
cpus). They are not, and that's the market I'm in (I would just love
to get faster compiles from Forte C++ 6). Maybe the "Jalapeno" will
narrow the gap somewhat, it depends just how long we have to wait.
Just check out www.spec.org, or read the following post by Stephen
Halpin :
From: "Stephen E. Halpin" <s...@quadrizen.com>
Subject: Re: New Sun servers announced
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 07:54:45 -0500
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Rich Teer wrote:
> On 2 Nov 2001, Greg Andrews wrote:
>
> > How long does it take to develop the hardware and software
> > for the SunFire machines we've been talking about? More
> > than 8 quarters (two years).
You can't compare something the size of a StarFire to a Dell
desktop and expect to make any sense of the development
times. On the other hand, there are conditions where it is
fair to compare the UltraSPARC III systems to the Pentium 4
systems, which is in 1-2 processor with 1GB of RAM or less
class. As this class of system describes 99% of unit sales in the
general market, and likely the majority of unit sales in Suns case,
it is relavent for many people. In light of the comment below
about Intel not making chipsets, I include some numbers based
on systems which use Intel chipsets and how they compare to
the Sun designed Blade 1000 for this class of machine.
>
> >
> > Sun has had these projects in the pipeline for far longer
> > than the current economic conditions have existed. Sun
>
> Indeed. Serengetti and Excalibur (Sun Fire servers and the
> Sun Blade 1000 resepctively) were being talked about 4 or 5
> years ago, when I was in Sun working on Sheffield (what is now
> the Netra ft-1800).
>
> I think Sun's reletively long lead times boils down to two
> reasons:
>
> 1) They like to take their time to get it right.
Those who suffered for years from the cache bug in the
UltraSPARC II, or know of the lockup problem in the
UltraSPARC I or the prefetch problem in the UltraSPARC III
might question what one means by "get it right."
On the high end I've seen 6000 series machines crash multple
times per day with hardware troubles, and on the low end I
can crash the Ultra 10's I use simply by putting a copy of
"Music Evolution" by Buckshot LeFonque into the CD drive.
No system is flawless, and Sun's systems are no exception.
>
>
> 2) They don't have the resources ($$) that Intel does.
>
> WRT point 2, don't forget that Intel just designs the CPU.
> Sun designs the CPU and the rest of the machine, with (I
> imagine) less cash than Intel.
Intel does most of the chipsets used for PCs, and they also
do some motherboard designs. Peaking at the STREAMS numbers
from http://www.cs.virginia.edu/stream/standard/Bandwidth.html:
Machine ID ncpus COPY SCALE ADD TRIAD
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dell_8100-1500 1 2106.0 2106.0 2144.0 2144.0
Sun_Blade_1750 1 809.2 814.8 931.4 890.8
And peaking at SPECrates from http://www.spec.org/osg/cpu2000/results/...
Company Name System Name CPUs Base Peak
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
(SPECint_rate2000)
Dell Precision WorkStation 530 (1.50 GHz 2 10.8 11.2
Dell Precision WorkStation 530 (2.0 GHz X 2 13.1 13.4
Sun Microsystems Sun Blade 1000 Model 2750 2 8.43 8.98
Sun Microsystems Sun Blade 1000 Model 2900 2 10.0 10.7
(SPECfp_rate2000)
Dell Precision WorkStation 530 (1.5 GHz X 2 10.9 11.2
Dell Precision WorkStation 530 (2.0 GHz X 2 12.0 12.4
Sun Microsystems Sun Blade 1000 Model 2750 2 7.02 7.84
Sun Microsystems Sun Blade 1000 Model 2900 2 8.00 8.88
shows that the Suns are slower on this sampling of integer, floating point
and memory bandwidth code bases. Indeed the top UltraSPARC III peak numbers
trail all the bottom of the line 1.5GHz P4 base numbers.
As usual, if you can, test your own applications before buying, as there
can be significant variation based on a number of factors.
>
>
> I'm hoping that the US IIIi will be the light weight speed
> demon we're all hoping for. By light weight, I mean doesn't
> scale very well in one box beyond a handful of CPUs - a bit
> like state of the art Intel. ;-)
I'd be happy with inexpensive memory for my Ultra 60 that
won't catch on fire :-> Even third party memory is 3 times
as expensive as that for an Octane, and SGI has licensed their
memory designs making it more likely that third party memory
will actually work.
-Steve
>
>
> --
> Rich Teer
>
> President,
> Rite Online Inc.
>
> Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
> URL: http://www.rite-online.net
Steve Kappel
Rich Teer wrote:
>On Sat, 5 Jan 2002, YTC#1 wrote:
>
>> You jest , of course.
>> While the chip cycle is slower, due to the design (and has been posted
>> here recently) the processor is far superior in scalability and
>> througput.
>
>I admire Sun's technology as much as - if not more than - the next
>guy, but even I have trouble swallowing the idea that a 1.05 GHz
>UltraSPARC III would not be slower on 32-bit CPU bound stuff than
>a 2 GHz+ Intel (or clone). 1.5 GHz MAYBE*, but 2 GHz seems to be
>stretching credibilty. But as I don't have access to any suitabvle
>systems, maybe I'll be pleasently surprised...
Clock rates between processor families are not apples to apples.
Unfortunately Intel has been successful in brainwashing people
into thinking that they are.
Intel designs break instructions down into micro-ops for a deep
pipeline. The clock rate is the rate of moving one micro-op
pipeline step. That doesn't mean 1 instruction == 1 clock cycle.
UltraSPARC has a much higher "work" per clock cycle. I haven't
kept up on the current-generation ratios but I would guess
around 2 to 1. That is, for every clock cycle on UltraSPARC
you need 2 clock cycles on Intel to do the same "work". So
750Mhz UltraSPARC ~= 1.5Ghz Intel.
Also remember that most recent UltraSPARC machines all run in
64 bit mode. I don't think you can even make the US-III
run a 32 bit kernel (note I said kernel, not application).
UltraSPARC is a 64 bit chip. It will obviously be tuned for
64 bit over 32 bit applications. So again, taking performance
numbers from a 32 bit application on Intel and UltraSPARC is
not really a fair comparison. What happens when you need
64 bit application? Try comparing the same application
in 64 bit mode on UltraSPARC vs. 32 bit mode on Intel.
Don't even mention Itanic (er I mean Itanium). What a joke.
Crap at 64 bit and far far worse at 32 bit apps.
Nicholas Brealey
>
> I admire Sun's technology as much as - if not more than - the next
> guy, but even I have trouble swallowing the idea that a 1.05 GHz
> UltraSPARC III would not be slower on 32-bit CPU bound stuff than
> a 2 GHz+ Intel (or clone). 1.5 GHz MAYBE*, but 2 GHz seems to be
> stretching credibilty. But as I don't have access to any suitabvle
> systems, maybe I'll be pleasently surprised...
>
> * Which, it has to be said, would be pretty damn impressive!
>
I was quite surprised when a 1.5 GHz P4 was 10% slower than a 500 MHz P3
on one code, but take a look at http://www.emulators.com/pentium4.htm
where it says:
Benchmark after benchmark after benchmark shows the 1.5 GHz Pentium
chip running slower than a 900 MHz Athlon, and in some cases slower
than a 533 MHz Celeron, even as slow as a 200 MHz Pentium in rare cases.
Unfortunately the code I was running only runs on Windows so a Sun Blade
1000 is not an option. The code will probably get better when it is
recompiled with P4 optimizations.
Nick
Chris Morgan
> UltraSPARC has a much higher "work" per clock cycle. I haven't
> kept up on the current-generation ratios but I would guess
> around 2 to 1. That is, for every clock cycle on UltraSPARC
> you need 2 clock cycles on Intel to do the same "work". So
> 750Mhz UltraSPARC ~= 1.5Ghz Intel.
On Monday Intel will be selling 2.2 GHz chips. Sun will still be
selling 900MHz at best, so Intel will be ahead even if we accept your
analysis.
Benny Kleykens
>
> YTC#1 <ytcN...@ytc1.co.uk> writes:
>
> > You jest , of course.
>
> I do not jest, of course.
>
> > While the chip cycle is slower, due to the design (and has been posted
> > here recently) the processor is far superior in scalability and
> > througput.
>
> The UltraSPARC-III has some features that support more scalability and
> hence ultimately large systems with more aggregate throughput. That's
> not the same as being competitive in the workstation market (say, 1-2
> cpus). They are not, and that's the market I'm in (I would just love
> to get faster compiles from Forte C++ 6). Maybe the "Jalapeno" will
> narrow the gap somewhat, it depends just how long we have to wait.
>
> Just check out www.spec.org, or read the following post by Stephen
Chris,
I see what you mean. But aren't you missing a point here ?
A workstation has to be fast but it does not have to be REALLY, REALLY
fast. Applications, Processor power, Storage , Backup, ... are all
services provided by servers (ussually set up in a nice secure, cool but
noisy room) and performance depends on them. It makes sense that way and
it is e.g. the reason workstations do not need to have redundant power
supplies: its okay if a workstation goes down, we can miss it, we can
not miss our server though.
And if you need MORE processing power you do not replace all the
workstations with faster workstations, but you scale the server or you
add a second server and if you are out of storage you do not add a hard
disk to a workstation but you add to your SAN or NAS. That's what it is
all about : keeping it manageable. So maybe the name Workstation is a
bad name, because workstations don't have to work all that much if the
network is set up smart, it's the guy sitting in front of it that has to
do the work and the workstation is the interface to the network. This
way you can make things redundant and reduce down time, you can cluster
servers, you can controle your network even if it grows and grows and
grows ...
Workstations have to be fast ENOUGH and they have to be low on power
consumption.
Furthermore SPECint and SPECfp may give you nice numbers to compare
systems but they often have little relevance irl. SunBlade 1000
workstations have VERY good compile power, and we are talking 64bit
compilers here, not 32bit.
regards,
Benny
, it boots up and gives you access to that really powrfull server in the
really noisy computerroom.
Chris Morgan
> Chris,
>
> I see what you mean. But aren't you missing a point here ?
> A workstation has to be fast but it does not have to be REALLY, REALLY
> fast. Applications, Processor power, Storage , Backup, ... are all
> services provided by servers (ussually set up in a nice secure, cool but
> noisy room) and performance depends on them. It makes sense that way and
> it is e.g. the reason workstations do not need to have redundant power
> supplies: its okay if a workstation goes down, we can miss it, we can
> not miss our server though.
I'm sure this is true for many people. For myself however I want a
workstation with extreme cpu power and adequate-to-extreme other
things. The application receives a large amount of data in real-time,
chews on it, and then provides complex, interactive real-time
graphics. It's a classic "fat client" type of job. As sorry as I am to
say it, right now, Sun isn't very competitive in my market.
When I have to fiddle with the makefiles for my application and then
wait whilst it tries to rebuild, I always want more cpu power. I can't
use the servers since I rely on all kinds of tools (e.g. new
compilers) which I have to have long before they are "standardised"
for the back-end developers.
>
> And if you need MORE processing power you do not replace all the
> workstations with faster workstations, but you scale the server or you
> add a second server and if you are out of storage you do not add a hard
> disk to a workstation but you add to your SAN or NAS. That's what it is
> all about : keeping it manageable. So maybe the name Workstation is a
> bad name, because workstations don't have to work all that much if the
> network is set up smart, it's the guy sitting in front of it that has to
> do the work and the workstation is the interface to the network. This
> way you can make things redundant and reduce down time, you can cluster
> servers, you can controle your network even if it grows and grows and
> grows ...
> Workstations have to be fast ENOUGH and they have to be low on power
> consumption.
I don't care about power consumption at work (I only enable
power-saving on the monitors). I just need more SPARC/Solaris
performance than I'm currently getting. Even when I add the second cpu
I expect I'll still want more. My $10k Sun workstation feels slow
compared to my $4k athlon-based home-brew Linux workstation at home.
>
> Furthermore SPECint and SPECfp may give you nice numbers to compare
> systems but they often have little relevance irl. SunBlade 1000
> workstations have VERY good compile power, and we are talking 64bit
> compilers here, not 32bit.
I don't need "64bit compilers". I would like a version of Forte that
compiles at some useful fraction of the speed of Microsoft Visual
Studio C++. The comparison is important to me since I have a
top-of-the-line Compaq Evo W6000 under my desk next to my Blade 1000
on which I also compile and run my C++ application code. The
comparison is not a pleasant one.
> , it boots up and gives you access to that really powrfull server in the
> really noisy computerroom.
Sorry, but isn't what you're talking about more like an X-terminal?
That wouldn't work for me.
Chris