Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 10:40:18 +0200 From: Brad Knowles <brad@stop.mail-abuse.org> To: Scott Long <scottl@samsco.org> Cc: sparc64@freebsd.org Subject: Re: U1E and U2 are supported system? Message-ID: <p0600207ebd58964f5f59@[10.0.1.3]> In-Reply-To: <4132A4F7.1000701@samsco.org> References: <20040829.055715.02308074.hrs@eos.ocn.ne.jp> <20040829035525.GB5269@electra.cse.Buffalo.EDU> <p0600207dbd581642ca41@[10.0.1.3]> <20040830020710.GA98170@dragon.nuxi.com> <4132A4F7.1000701@samsco.org>
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At 9:54 PM -0600 2004-08-29, Scott Long wrote:
> In reality, it's hard to get
> excited about putting this much work into a machine that is only 167MHz.
> The Ultra2 is fairly useable but is still pretty slow at basic things
> like 'buildworld'.
For me, one of the really cool things about the U2 is that you
can swap the CPU modules for ones based on UltraSPARC-II, up to
400MHz. That plus decent speed SCSI drives brings them a lot closer
to the capabilities of more modern hardware. I mean, 2GB of RAM plus
two 400MHz UltraSPARC-II chips gets you into the 220R class, and I
have run some pretty good size ISP-class mail servers on machines
like that, serving multiple hundreds of thousands of users.
Certainly, even an original U2 is quite capable of being a decent
firewall/IPSec VPN/DHCP box for a moderate size network, and should
be overkill for that function on most SOHO networks.
The Ultra1 doesn't let you swap out the CPUs or give you two of
them, so that puts it back quite a bit further. Still, as the least
expensive UltraSPARC out there, it would be good if we could support
them better, if only to lower the barrier to entry.
> I can't possibly imagine waiting for an Ultra1 to
> complete this task. However, if someone wants to lend a hand, I'd be
> happy to share my notes and point you in the right direction.
I may have mentioned this before, but I'm not a programmer. I'm
happy to drive up to a University in a nearby country and help to
pick up a good quantity of boxes that are being donated to the
project, and there are a variety of other ways that I will try to
contribute to the project -- perhaps including the distribution of
some of my existing UltraSPARC hardware to deserving/needy developers.
That said, it might be interesting to look into the NetBSD le
driver and see just what exactly it is that you kernel hackers do....
--
Brad Knowles, <brad@stop.mail-abuse.org>
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755
SAGE member since 1995. See <http://www.sage.org/>; for more info.
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