[OpenIndiana-discuss] OpenSolaris on SPARC

Tue Jul 31 17:53:53 UTC 2012

ALL RIGHT, SPARC enthusiasts  ))

Thanks for all your kind comments.
Moment, moment  ...
As I said before, I still need a few days (1 week?, 2 weeks?, 3 weeks?).
You won't be disappointed this time, as Xsun is the key:  (just works!)

In the past I would spend literally endless amounts of time at Xorg
(with only humble success at the maximum).
And therefore there was never much time for the actual distro.
This time it is absolutely different. And it will be here still in
mid/end of August.
On which day? I don't know.

And as you see it is called OI, rather than MartUX.
It is intended for us all, for the OI SPARC community.

Currently I'm busy not only at computers.
I'm quite in a mess, as always.
But you hear from me later this month.
The opened minimalistic Xsun works now. And although I never tried
drugs, I bet they can't be half as good  ;)

Till later, asap  .....  regards,    %martin

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 6:15 PM, ken mays <maybird1776 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> A few people have ventured into releasing an IPS repo of OpenIndiana SPARC builds as well as recent X11 7.7 build from here:
>
> https://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/oracle/x-cons/x-s11-update-clone/
> Good read (needs updating): http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/Project+fox/SPARC-Xorg
>
>
> ~ Ken Mays
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>  From: Daniel Kjar <dkjar at elmira.edu>
> To: Discussion list for OpenIndiana <openindiana-discuss at openindiana.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 9:53 AM
> Subject: Re: [OpenIndiana-discuss] OpenSolaris on SPARC
>
> I just picked up 2  x7310a chips for 100$ so I am anxiously awaiting OI
> for my SB1000!
>
>
> 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
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> OpenIndiana-discuss mailing list
>> OpenIndiana-discuss at openindiana.org
>> http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss
>
> --
> 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
>
>
>
>
>
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