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Toady
Apprentice
Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 161
Location: South Wales, UK
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 Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 9:04 am Post subject: Sparc hardware advice |
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I currently have Gentoo running on my Ultra 10 at home, this is my do -everything home server and I am quite happy with it.
It has 512MB RAM, 2x 40Gb IDE disks the 333Mhz CPU (with 2 meg of cache) etc... this machine does just fine for what I want.
Its just a firewall / webserver / mail server etc, nothing too amasing.
Over at my dads house I set him up with a Compaq Dual PII 300 box with 256meg of RAM running the same services, its currently running my old favourite distro (SuSE) and does a good job.
The time has come however for an upgrade for dad mainly because his system is very outdated and while the firewall is set quite secure I do worrey that its a security risk.
The Question:
Do I just build the machine with Gentoo and leave the hardware as it is or do I get another Sun machine for him too (call me weird but I kinda like sun hardware, it wont screw up as often as a pc does).
If I get a sun I would like somthing thats going to be at least as good as my Ultra 10 if not better. So do I get him an Ultra5 or an Ultra 2 (Dual cpu).
I could also use My old server wich is also a Cpmpaq dual proc (Pentium Pro Overdrives - This machine actually out paces the PII's because they have larger cache at full cpu clock 333MHz)...
What to do ?
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Toady
Gentoo Laptop
3.1.10-gentoo-r1, Intel Core 2 Duo (32bit)
Gnome on the desk, Intel in the box, on-board everything, but it all works! |
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inode77
Veteran
Joined: 20 Jan 2004
Posts: 1303
Location: Heart of Europe
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 12:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | If I get a sun I would like somthing thats going to be at least as good as my Ultra 10 if not better. So do I get him an Ultra5 or an Ultra 2 (Dual cpu). |
I don't advise you to buy an Ultra2. They are fine machines but run on SCSI hardware and do have an SBUS (not that easy to add a nic or two; or better said not that cheap)
As for Ultra 5 or Ultra 10 there's no big difference execpt the desktop format and less extension capabilities (for the 5er). If you really want a nice SUN with standard pc hardware buy a Ultra10 (440MHz) AFAIK the fastest CPU available for the Ultra10. (A lot of the old crew that uses SUN hw products consider the Ultra5 and Ultra10 as cheap and not SUN worthy  but I agree Sun does make very nice and robust HW.)
| Quote: | | Do I just build the machine with Gentoo and leave the hardware as it is or do I get another Sun machine for him too (call me weird but I kinda like sun hardware, it wont screw up as often as a pc does). |
If he "only" runs some home server services and a firewall on it I wouldn't change anything concerning hw. (And sure thing I would not buy an old Sun! If you like something new consider an EPIA board from via. low power consumation, low noise, low space and IMHO enough power for the needs you described) |
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Toady
Apprentice
Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 161
Location: South Wales, UK
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 12:35 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for that..
As for the Sun Ultra 5 / 10 being un Sun worthy I can see the point, it really need SCSI disks since the IDE is only slow UDMA33 
Ultra hardware with SBUS is not an issue, I have a pair of SS20's with QUAD ethernet cards in each and good fram buffers so I am pretty well set. I also have plenty of SCA SCSI 9gb Disks to go in too..
TBH I think I probably will stick with the compaq's since they are quick enough for my needs and hardware support is all there (and I have scsi disks in them already)
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Toady
Gentoo Laptop
3.1.10-gentoo-r1, Intel Core 2 Duo (32bit)
Gnome on the desk, Intel in the box, on-board everything, but it all works! |
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