Sparc: "emulate" it on x86 (windows, linux) & run solaris 10. Anyone done it?

David Combs

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Jan 18, 2012, 10:06:39 PM1/18/12

to

What with Oracle hardware being so expensive, plus not making
any workstations, how about EMULATING a sparc on x86?

Running solaris 10.

Has anyone here actually done that? Or know anyone who
has?

And, what have you heard about sparc emulation? Sparc programs
actually work ok?

Anything that does NOT work?

---

Also, is the emulator just another program, like vi, etc,
that runs in user-space?

Any hardware (x86) hacks that have to be done first?

Thanks!

David

John D Groenveld

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Jan 19, 2012, 12:14:42 AM1/19/12

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In article <jf81bv$ren$1...@panix2.panix.com>,

David Combs <dkc...@panix.com> wrote:
>And, what have you heard about sparc emulation? Sparc programs
>actually work ok?

I believe QuickTransit emulated SPARC on x86.
IBM purchased Transitive.COM and has EOL'd QuickTransit according to
Timothy Prickett Morgan:
<URL:http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh092611-story06.html>

John
groe...@acm.org

Doug McIntyre

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Jan 19, 2012, 1:00:36 AM1/19/12

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dkc...@panix.com (David Combs) writes:
>What with Oracle hardware being so expensive, plus not making
>any workstations, how about EMULATING a sparc on x86?

>Running solaris 10.

>Has anyone here actually done that? Or know anyone who
>has?

Sort of like VMWare, but running SPARC machines?
QEMU supports emulated SPARC with sun4m and sun4u architectures.

I can't imagine it would be very fast.

Looks like they got it up to Solaris 2.6 before too many errors in the
emulation did it in for later versions, although they try..

http://tyom.blogspot.com/2009/12/solaris-under-qemu-how-to.html

>And, what have you heard about sparc emulation? Sparc programs
>actually work ok?

Since its a super-small niche, there isn't going to be a whole lot of
work on it to be anywhere close to what VMWare or even the main QEMU
train can do for x86..

>Also, is the emulator just another program, like vi, etc,
>that runs in user-space?

Sure.

Tomasz Potega

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Jan 19, 2012, 2:28:14 AM1/19/12

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W dniu 19.01.2012 04:06, David Combs pisze:

> Has anyone here actually done that? Or know anyone who
> has?
>
> And, what have you heard about sparc emulation? Sparc programs
> actually work ok?

Simics, while more of a development tool, used to get the job done
a few years ago.

http://www.windriver.com/products/simics/

Don't know about the pricing, though, as I was eligible for
a personal academic license back then.

shadow

Fritz Wuehler

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Jan 19, 2012, 4:34:59 AM1/19/12

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dkc...@panix.com (David Combs) wrote:

> What with Oracle hardware being so expensive, plus not making
> any workstations, how about EMULATING a sparc on x86?

What about buying a used Sun workstation?

>
> Running solaris 10.
>
> Has anyone here actually done that? Or know anyone who
> has?

SIMICS

>
> And, what have you heard about sparc emulation? Sparc programs
> actually work ok?

If they didn't it would be hard to sell it.

> Also, is the emulator just another program, like vi, etc,
> that runs in user-space?

No

> Any hardware (x86) hacks that have to be done first?

No

> Thanks!
>
> David
>
>

George

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Jan 20, 2012, 10:47:25 AM1/20/12

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On 01/18/2012 10:06 PM, David Combs wrote:
> What with Oracle hardware being so expensive, plus not making
> any workstations, how about EMULATING a sparc on x86?
>
> Running solaris 10.
>
> Has anyone here actually done that? Or know anyone who has?

My employer runs a commercial version of VMware that emulates an 8-cpu
T5240 on a big PC box and it runs Solaris 10 without problems. (It is
also two orders of magnitude slower than a real one).

David Combs

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Jan 21, 2012, 7:07:44 PM1/21/12

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In article <k2gSq.1157$_g3...@newsfe09.iad>,

Thanks, guys.

I guess it's mainly got to be Sparc hardware, then.

And I suppose that, on ebay, can only get cheaper over
time?

A friend of mine told me that companies were "fleeing" Sun/Oracle
equipment, being as x86 is only some (small?) fraction of
the cost.

QUESTION: is that true? That sparc-"shops" are switching hardware.

QUESTION: how successful has Oracle been selling Sparc
systems (with its database, I guess)?

----

QUESTION: how much faster is Sun hardware circa 2000, 2005 than
way back on Sun 3 (68020)? (I had one back in 1986, and can
remember how long certain programs took back then.)

20 to 1? More? Less?

I later graduated to a Sparcstation-5, whose speed totally amazed me.

(Clearly, I'm trying to get a feel for how "maybe not so bad" a sparc
emulator for x86 would be.)

Again, thanks for your (prior) replies!

David

George

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Jan 23, 2012, 10:37:00 AM1/23/12

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On 01/21/2012 07:07 PM, David Combs wrote:
> In article<k2gSq.1157$_g3...@newsfe09.iad>,
> George<geo...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> On 01/18/2012 10:06 PM, David Combs wrote:
>>> What with Oracle hardware being so expensive, plus not making
>>> any workstations, how about EMULATING a sparc on x86?
>>>
>>> Running solaris 10.
>>>
>>> Has anyone here actually done that? Or know anyone who has?
>>
>> My employer runs a commercial version of VMware that emulates an 8-cpu
>> T5240 on a big PC box and it runs Solaris 10 without problems. (It is
>> also two orders of magnitude slower than a real one).
>
> Thanks, guys.
>
> I guess it's mainly got to be Sparc hardware, then.
>
> And I suppose that, on ebay, can only get cheaper over time?

My advice is to buy an SB2500 on Ebay. For a few hundred dollars, you
can get yourself a fairly decent fast machine.

>
> QUESTION: is that true? That sparc-"shops" are switching hardware.

We didn't switch voluntarily. We were a UNIX shop bought by a larger
Windoze shop (which forced our development onto slow emulators yet runs
its data centre on Sparc). I cannot speak to general trends.

Jim Leonard

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Jan 23, 2012, 2:14:02 PM1/23/12

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On Jan 21, 6:07 pm, dkco...@panix.com (David Combs) wrote:
> QUESTION: is that true? That sparc-"shops" are switching hardware.

Depends on the workload. For Oracle databases or for a bazillion web
instances per machine, it's pretty hard to beat Sparc. We just
ordered more T4s.

Sparc is not the best machine for all workloads -- if your workload is
small, you would be best served by commodity x86 hardware.

Cydrome Leader

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Feb 10, 2012, 12:48:24 AM2/10/12

to

David Combs <dkc...@panix.com> wrote:
> In article <k2gSq.1157$_g3...@newsfe09.iad>,
> George <geo...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>On 01/18/2012 10:06 PM, David Combs wrote:
>>> What with Oracle hardware being so expensive, plus not making
>>> any workstations, how about EMULATING a sparc on x86?
>>>
>>> Running solaris 10.
>>>
>>> Has anyone here actually done that? Or know anyone who has?
>>
>>My employer runs a commercial version of VMware that emulates an 8-cpu
>>T5240 on a big PC box and it runs Solaris 10 without problems. (It is
>>also two orders of magnitude slower than a real one).
>
> Thanks, guys.
>
> I guess it's mainly got to be Sparc hardware, then.
>
> And I suppose that, on ebay, can only get cheaper over
> time?
>
> A friend of mine told me that companies were "fleeing" Sun/Oracle
> equipment, being as x86 is only some (small?) fraction of
> the cost.
>
> QUESTION: is that true? That sparc-"shops" are switching hardware.

yes. We just did it. Oracle was unable to quote or deliver sparc hardware
in a reasonable time frame, so we switched to solaris x86 on HP.

There really isn't much support for this when it comes to running
corporate nonsense software, so we dropped solaris.

There's no question I prefer solaris as an OS over what we have now, but
the fact is oracle made huge deliberate effort to fuck over all their
formerly loyal customers.

Solaris on sun hardware isn't the only game in town. Good bye oracle.

> QUESTION: how successful has Oracle been selling Sparc
> systems (with its database, I guess)?

they're completely failing at this point.