[OpenIndiana-discuss] A poor SPARC user's introduction

[Michael Spacefalcon]

Hello OI community,

Please forgive and be gentle...

I am a total newbie to Solaris of any kind, or anything at all to do
with any flavor of Solaris, open or otherwise - all my prior Unix
experience is with GNU/Linux and very ancient versions of BSD.
My current mission is to get *some*/any form of Solaris, open or
otherwise, running on a not-too-new UltraSPARC machine - a SunBlade
1000, a hand-me-down from a former employer who went out of business.

The first question which I probably need to answer is "Why?".  Well,
here are my issues:

* I need to set up a new server in my personal machine room that is
  just a tad newer/beefier than my DEC MicroVAXen running 4.3BSD.

* For psychoemotional reasons, I cannot use x86 hardware.  In order
  for me to be a happy and whole person, I need my server's CPU
  architecture to be something other than x86.  I realize that my
  hand-me-down UltraSPARC is probably something like 1000 times slower
  than an entry-level x86 PeeCee one would get today at Best Buy, but
  to me that is a perfectly acceptable price for the emotional
  happiness I would get from using a non-x86 machine - the latter is
  absolutely priceless.

* I know about Linux/SPARC, and I've already played with it: I've got
  a little Ultra 5 running Bobware, a SPARC port of Slackware, with a
  2.4.36.9 kernel.

  But for this particular server I think some form of Solaris would
  serve me better than Linux: the primary special features I have in
  mind for this server are ZFS and zones; both of these are perfectly
  native in Solaris, but a pita to bring up in the Linux world.
  Also the SPARC hardware support is probably better in Solaris than
  in Linux, I would imagine...

* Speaking of hardware support: my machine is heavily FibreChannel-
  based.  The system HDD in the SunBlade 1000 is an FC drive, and for
  my main mass storage system, I plan to attach an FC JBOD (also a
  hand-me-down from the same former employer) to the FC connector on
  the back of the SunBlade 1000, and make ZFS vdevs out of the many FC
  drives I've got.

  Given that this FC subsystem is a standard part of the SunBlade 1000
  machine as designed and sold by Sun, I would imagine that Solaris
  supports it 100% - but no idea about Linux/SPARC...

The machine in its current state, as it came from the former employer
who donated it to me, seems to run Solaris 8.  That version predates
ZFS, so I need either Solaris 10 or an "Open" variant.

Seeing how the OpenSolaris community and its successors seem to be
totally x86-dominated, with SPARC seeming to have fallen by the
wayside, I had at first resigned myself to having to use a binary-only
release from Oracle (yuck).  So I went through their clickwrap license
BS, and downloaded sol-10-u10-ga2-sparc-dvd.iso.

But there is a problem - it's a DVD image, not a CD.  I have never
seen a DVD drive on a classic SCSI-based SPARC machine.  Aside from
the Ultra 5, all of the UltraSPARC machines I've got (the SunBlade
1000, and some Ultra 30/60/80 boxes) are SCSI-based (plus FC on the
SunBlade 1000), and don't have IDE/ATA, let alone SATA.  My SunBlade
1000 lacks an optical drive altogether, but I can pull a SCSI CD-ROM
drive from one of the other Ultras - the latter have CD-ROM drives
with classic 50-pin SCSI connectors.

I have never seen or heard of a DVD drive with a 50-pin SCSI connector.
I don't know if such things exist at all, but if they do, I imagine
they probably cost an arm and a leg.  But if the OS distribution is
only available in the form of a DVD image, how is one supposed to
install it on a classic SPARC machine like Ultra 30/60/80 or
SunBlade 1000?

Then I was pleasantly surprised to see that the OpenIndiana community
is not totally x86-exclusive, and there was a SPARC release made a
week or so ago by some wonderful fellow.  But again, the ISO file is
DVD-sized, not CD-sized - hence the same problem as with Oracle's
version.

I wonder, what would it take to produce a distribution of OI for SPARC
that fits on a CD?  Assume that it's going to a server that will be
used with a serial console, no monitor or keyboard ever, hence no need
for any desktop GUI components.  (The ability to use a serial console
instead of a keyboard/monitor for operations such as initial OS install
is one of the main reasons why I need SPARC rather than x86.  I love
my real DEC VTxxx terminals, and hate PeeCee keyboard/video/mouse
stuff with a passion.)

If some kind soul/angel can build a CD-sized ISO image of any version
of Solaris/OpenSolaris/OI/whatever (well, any version that supports
ZFS and zones) for SPARC that is bootable on a real Sun UltraSPARC
machine, I would be forever grateful, and would also gladly compensate
the benefactor with a Bitcoin payment.  (I have 3 BTC to spare right
now, and might be able to scrounge up more.)

SF