From owner-freebsd-sparc64@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Nov 23 23:03:00 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-sparc64@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-sparc64@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6079516A42A for ; Wed, 23 Nov 2005 23:03:00 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from carton@Ivy.NET) Received: from sakima.Ivy.NET (sakima.Ivy.NET [69.31.131.60]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4D40F43D78 for ; Wed, 23 Nov 2005 23:02:35 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from carton@Ivy.NET) Received: from castrovalva.Ivy.NET (castrovalva.Ivy.NET [IPv6:2001:4830:2150:c0::3]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by sakima.Ivy.NET (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4671B2FF5B for ; Wed, 23 Nov 2005 18:02:31 -0500 (EST) Received: by castrovalva.Ivy.NET (Postfix, from userid 405) id 92E5B12FC81; Wed, 23 Nov 2005 18:02:30 -0500 (EST) To: freebsd-sparc64@freebsd.org References: <4384D20F.7080706@wmptl.com> From: Miles Nordin MIME-Version: 1.0 (generated by SEMI 1.14.6 - "Maruoka") Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="pgp-sign-Multipart_Wed_Nov_23_18:02:20_2005-1"; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 18:02:30 -0500 In-Reply-To: <4384D20F.7080706@wmptl.com> (Nathan Vidican's message of "Wed, 23 Nov 2005 15:33:19 -0500") Message-ID: User-Agent: T-gnus/6.17.2 (based on No Gnus v0.2) SEMI/1.14.6 (Maruoka) FLIM/1.14.7 (=?ISO-8859-4?Q?Sanj=F2?=) APEL/10.6 Emacs/21.4 (alpha--netbsd) MULE/5.0 (SAKAKI) Subject: Re: FreeBSD viability on Sparc platform X-BeenThere: freebsd-sparc64@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the Sparc List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 23:03:00 -0000 --pgp-sign-Multipart_Wed_Nov_23_18:02:20_2005-1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII >>>>> "nv" == Nathan Vidican writes: nv> run FreeBSD on them, or am I stuck with Solaris. If you use the SunPro compilers with Solaris I have heard rumors it could be like ~2x faster than gcc on sparc64. Also, on Solaris there are not bugs with the thread support which may or may not matter with mysql and multiple CPUs. On Solaris Java environments are available, while for free Unix you are lucky to have any recent native Java much less any Java at all on non-i386. Although I don't know this from experience I would expect better handling of certain hardware redundnacy stuff like reporting ECC memory diagnostics and redundant power supply failures to syslog from Solaris, because in free Unix that stuff seems to be mostly left unimplemented and untested. I do know that FreeBSD doesn't let me get to my Netra's LOM from userland while Solaris has man pages about how to do that. ZFS is total vapourware but Solaris does have a normal modern logging filesystem like all the other non-BSD Unixes. Finally, I believe Solaris will support interrupt mitigation on the gem/eri interface if you have one, while AFAIK FreeBSD doesn't support device polling or interrupt mitigation on any network card that works on sparc64, so if you need high-pps routing I would bet on Solaris. If you need slow routing for an Internet firewall on a small pipe, I use FreeBSD/sparc64 for that, because PF > *. ipfilter is really totally unacceptable. Also Solaris in general is a pain in the ass---root filesystems don't function as rescue partitions, all the tools are ancient, you end up with like 30 directories in your PATH/LD_LIBRARY_PATH/MANPATH and then find that 'man' doesn't work with non-Solaris man pages, there's no decent packages collection except NetBSD pkgsrc where many packages are broken, 'format' and their Sun UFS have all these infuriating quirks with EFI vs SMD disklabels, the physical geometry of disks, feechurs that work on SCSI but not on IDE, disks that it thinks are ``removable'' vs ones that aren't, missing Firewire drivers on the install CDs. There are no 'securelevels' on Solaris so it is heaven for rootkit writers. The X servers are all closed-source and don't support the RENDER extension. It is a very awkward and infuriating system, but do I use it because I am so sick of regressions and old bugs that never get fixed in the free Unixes. I haven't bought a PeeCee since 1999, and I've gotten to watch free Unix turn into a total disastrous embarassment for anyone who refuses to use i386. I still refuse to buy that silicon garbage myself, but if you are trying to get work done for others and collect money for it, honestly that is what I have to recommend you use. --pgp-sign-Multipart_Wed_Nov_23_18:02:20_2005-1 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (NetBSD) iQCVAwUAQ4T1BonCBbTaW/4dAQIgCgP9GQ0oaNVjmBh6xotv56lWUjuoqB6GQekX Llhyb1DNG82PwdseUKpQF5jLfeiHwinDZ6owkbUSSxgXBwmuWey9PAWlELe9Alms liDNWKwCsV0cqR7uBI+a4keA9tojeKTO8gN3H1jsnTJ4AnYwevePEM/GGwIw5qzi rVLuxFFcn5g= =OZIf -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --pgp-sign-Multipart_Wed_Nov_23_18:02:20_2005-1--