[OpenIndiana-discuss] OpenSolaris on SPARC

[Daniel Kjar]

Hi Martin, hate to pester you but I just got my two 1.2 ghz chips in my 
sb1000 and was trying to put an old version of opensolaris on it (to 
hold me over till OI) and it can't find drivers for any of the video 
cards  during install. I have tried xvr1200,xvr100, and an old 
expert/elite 3d (not sure which).  Is this to be expected? I have never 
tried to put open solaris on it before.

Dan
On 07/30/12 06:51 PM, Martin Bochnig wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 6:33 PM, Daniel Kjar <dkjar at elmira.edu> wrote:
>> Fantastic!  I can't wait to fire up my sb1000 again!
>
> The SB1000/2000 is my favorite workstation, too ... as I have always said:
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/xwin-discuss/2008-August/002281.html
> http://unix.derkeiler.com/Newsgroups/comp.sys.sun.hardware/2005-05/0232.html
>
> These days you get the x7310a (1.2GHz III Cu) module for pennies.
> And they do outperform a Dualcore SB2500 Red 1,28GHz.
> Some people now think, that the Blade 1000/2000 is an electricity
> waster (which is true to some degree, just make your own tests and
> decide). But ironically the only other Sun SPARC Workstations that
> manage to outperform the maxed out SB1000/2000 are Dual core 1.6GHz
> SB2500 Silver and Ultra 45, which consume the same amount, if I can
> believe these results:
>
> http://chrysalis.rutgers.edu/hardware/powerbrief.php
>
> And I read various reviews that confirm, that CAD users were
> disappointed by the IIIi based machines, that did not deliver any
> significant "feelable" performance boost over the SB1000/2000, despite
> their higher clock, on-die (though much smaller) cache and faster
> memory.
>
> A look to spec confirms this:
>
> CFP2000 Results:
> SB1000/2000 IIIcu @ 1.2 GHz:
> http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/res2003q2/cpu2000-20030326-02001.html
> SB2500Red   IIIi @ 1.28 GHz
> http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/res2003q4/cpu2000-20030821-02436.html
> SB2500Silver IIIi @ 1.6 GHz
> http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/res2005q1/cpu2000-20050107-03681.html
>
>
>
>> I have an xvr1200 but I have pretty much determined I will never be able to
>> use that card again....
>
> Why? The XVR-1200 is similar to a XVR-600.
> I know, under Xorg it would be never supported. Maybe the best one
> could expect would be unaccelerated fb mode.
> However, as we now have an opensrc Xsun and redistributable binary
> drivers, including redistributable /dev/fb drivers for initializing
> and mapping the card, plus my changes to make the stumbled / cut-down
> opened version of Xsun function again, nothing should prevent you from
> using your XVR-1200. And in contrast to previous versions of modified
> Xorg, if now doesn't matter anymore, into which system with what kind
> of pci bridge you intend to plug your card. It should function,
> period.
>
> I know, this sounds like a dream.
> And that's why we cannot ever thank Alan Coopersmith enough, that he
> pushed through the opensrc release of Xsun, after it had been EOL'ed
> in 2010, yet just moments before Oracle closed the tap :)
>
>
>
>> Do you know what card would work best?  I have an ati radeon (xvr 100?)
>> card and a couple of those monstrous creator3ds.
>
>
> Any of these cards will work.
> The Creator/Creator3D/Elite3D even function with Xorg's ported
> Linux/BSD drivers under Xorg, that are still available on martux.org:
> http://martux.org/RELEASES/FOX1.0/SPARC/
> http://martux.org/RELEASES/SPARC_distro_incl_Xorg7.2/
>
> But under Xsun every of these just functions, does so reliably and quickly.
> So it rather depends on your 2D vs. 3D needs, free PCI slots vs. UPA
> slots, power consumption and so on.
> I in my beloved SB2000 use an Elite 3D UPA card.
> Maybe the XVR-1000 (UPA) or 1200 (3D Labs Wildcat PCI) would be even faster.
> But for normal office needs, any of these should be more than sufficient.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> rgds.
>     %mab
>
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-- 
Dr. Daniel Kjar
Assistant Professor of Biology
Division of Mathematics and Natural Sciences
Elmira College
1 Park Place
Elmira, NY 14901
607-735-1826
http://faculty.elmira.edu/dkjar

"...humans send their young men to war; ants send their old ladies"
	-E. O. Wilson