Date: Tue, 4 Jul 00 12:18:23 EST From: Dwight McKay (The Moderator) Reply-To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V13 #19 To: Suns-at-Home-List Suns-at-Home Digest Tue, 4 Jul 00 Volume 13 : Issue 19 Today's Topics: a few questions Getting Old Suns Working (2 msgs) PC RAM for the SparcLX (2 msgs) PPPoE and Solaris (2 msgs) Revisions regarding Ultra machines... SS2 Memory Problem Suns-at-Home Digest V13 #18 (4 msgs) +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Submissions: suns-at-home@net-kitchen.com | | Requests: suns-at-home-request@net-kitchen.com | | WWW Archive access: http://www.net-kitchen.com/~sah | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 21:07:49 EDT From: dave@cca.org Subject: a few questions To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com I just joined this list, and have a few general questions: a. Can anyone point me towards a good source of used VME boards? (I need a new motherboard for my 4/380, plus other old things - SMD, TAAC, multi-serial, D/A A/D, etc.) b. Aside from doing real work on sparcs, I collect older machines. Pointers towards pre-sun-3 machines would be appreciated. (The bigger, the better. The earlier, the better.) c. My SS2 running openbsd runs beautifully, and serves NFS to my VAXstation running ultrix beautifully. My RS/6000 running AIX 3.2.5 consistantly chokes after a few hours of mounting a filesystem via NFS from the sun. I'm blaming AIX by default, but perhaps someone has heard something about this being a known problem? -- David Fischer -- dave@cca.org -- www.cca.org -- weather control -- - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 16:39:35 +1000 (EST) From: Craig Dewick Subject: Getting Old Suns Working To: Dwight McKay > Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2000 23:48:14 -1000 > From: Kirill Levchenko > Subject: Getting Old Suns Working > To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com > > I am trying to bring back to life two SS1s and two diskless 3/60s > that I saved from the junk heap. I am new to Sun equipment, so I > apologize if my questions are naive or obvious. If you don't know, it doesn't hurt to ask... > Both of the SPARCs need a new NVRAM chip since one is missing and the > other is dead (invalid ID PROM indicated at startup). I haven't > looked at the 3/60s yet, they might need new ones also. 3/60's don't have NVRAM's - they have an EEPROM and an IDPROM (a genuine fusible-link PROM!) instead. The 3/80's (68030-based) machines used NVRAM's (same ST 48T02 type as the SS1's) though. > So my first question: Where is a good place to buy NVRAM chips? Most > places I checked list the price around $15, which would mean paying > more for the NVRAM chips than I paid for the machines themselves. Any > way to get them cheaper? No. Do not buy used NVRAM's - they have a guaranteed lifetime if bought new since it's the internal lithium cell which determines the length of time they'll retain the data that's stored in the RAM. I buy them locally (Sydney Australia) from the ST distributor in tube-lots for the NVRAM programming service that I offer via SRK. Someone else will need to point out where to buy them in small quantities in the US... > I found SunOS 4.1.1 for the sun3 architecture, so I assume I'll be > able to use that for the 3/60s when the time comes. Where can I get a > version (say, 4.1.1) of SunOS for the SPARCStations (sun4c > architecture)? Yes. 4.1.1 is the last version that will run on any of the Sun-3/3x machines. It was released in 1990. NetBSD runs on them however. >Sun only seems to be selling latest versions and at > high prices. Also, how exactly can I install unto the SPARCStations? > They only have floppy drives and I suspect SunOS does not come on > floppies. Sun only dropped support for the SS1's when Solaris 8 (SunOS 5.8) was released in March this year. Solaris 2 (SunOS 5.7) and below all support the sun-4c Sparc machines (SS1, SS1+, SS2, IPC, IPX, SLC, ELC). Also look seriously at NetBSD (www.netbsd.org). I have it running on a Sparc 1+ as my FTP server - SunOS 5.x would be too bogged down on the 25 Mhz sun-4c processor. > I also don't have any manuals. Is this another problem I'm ignoring, > or can I get along without them? They are useful, but probably not really needed. A lot of information is online, especially for the 3/60's (which are covered in great detail at the Sun-3 Archive website - check my Sun Shack page for a link to it). Regards, Craig. -- Craig Dewick. Send email to "cdewick@lios.apana.org.au" Point a web browser at 'http://lios.apana.org.au/~cdewick/sun_shack.html' to access my archive of Sun information and links to other places. For info about Sun Ripened Kernels, go to "http://www.sunrk.com.au" - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 10:48:18 -0400 (EDT) From: der Mouse Subject: Getting Old Suns Working To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com > I am trying to bring back to life two SS1s and two diskless 3/60s > that I saved from the junk heap. [...] > [...NVRAMs...] Can't help you there. > I found SunOS 4.1.1 for the sun3 architecture, so I assume I'll be > able to use that for the 3/60s when the time comes. Where can I get > a version (say, 4.1.1) of SunOS for the SPARCStations (sun4c > architecture)? If you're really determined to run SunOS, I can't help. But you might want to look into other alternatives. I know of three free OSes that should work on your SS1s: NetBSD/sparc, OpenBSD/sparc, and SparcLinux. The only one I've personally tried is NetBSD, and it works fine for me. > Also, how exactly can I install unto the SPARCStations? They only > have floppy drives and I suspect SunOS does not come on floppies. NetBSD/sparc has installer floppies that contain enough of an OS to download the rest over the net. (Of course, this isn't much use unless you have a net available to hook it up to, but it's the most painless. Next best would probably be to take the disk out and pop it in another machine and write either the whole distribution or just a miniroot to it, then move it back.) If you do go with NetBSD, I'll be happy to do what I can to help. der Mouse mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 16:48:37 +1000 (EST) From: Craig Dewick Subject: PC RAM for the SparcLX To: Dwight McKay > Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 16:54:04 -0400 > From: "Sheldon T. Hall" > Subject: PC RAM for the SparcLX > To: "'John Arsenault'" > > On Saturday, June 10, 2000 12:13 PM, John Arsenault wrote: > > On Monday May 29, 2000 Sheldon Hall wrote: > > "All three will take 128 MB of RAM, although the Sun spec is 96 MB. > They > > take real-parity PC RAM, too, which is cheaper than the special RAM for > the > > SS5-and-up." > > Do you have any suggestions for the brand, size and speed of PC real > parity > > RAM? I stripped one of my LX's to put 96MB in the other. > > John- > > I just used commodity PC RAM, no special brand. The LX wants 60 ns, FPM, > 72-pin, true-parity SIMMs. In theory, it will take 6 x 16 meg sticks, for > a total of 96 megs. In practice, you can put 32-meg sticks in the first > slot in each bank, put 16-meggers in the other four slots, and get 128 > megs. The catch is that the RAM *must* be 60 ns (or at a stretch, 70 ns) to work reliably, and it *must* all have the same type of parity. Single-bit parity SIMM's (not full parity) are the correct ones for LC, LC-X's, and LX's, but I've never tried full-parity SIMM's so I can't verify that they work, although you seem to believe they do, so it could well be true! The key factors are matched access speed, and matched parity type. This also applies to IPX's and other machines which take 72 pin RAM modules (except the SLC which *requires* full-parity 4 meg SIMM's). > 72-pin PC RAM seems to come in a variety of configurations: > > EDO or FPM > non-parity ("?x32"), logic parity, or true parity("?x36") > 80, 70, or 60 ns, and sometimes faster > > I think the majority of Pentium boxes that took 72-pin SIMMs used 60ns, > non-parity, EDO, but the other stuff is around. My wife's Dell P-100, for > example, requires 60ns, real-parity, FPM RAM, and it's stuffed with SIMMs I > salvaged out of a pile of DEC '486s from the local University surplus > store. The same stuff would suit the LX. In fact, the two 32-meg sticks > in the LX were in the Dell for a week or two. EDO SIMM's will not work at all. 8-) I know - I've tried. Regards, Craig. -- Craig Dewick. Send email to "cdewick@lios.apana.org.au" Point a web browser at 'http://lios.apana.org.au/~cdewick/sun_shack.html' to access my archive of Sun information and links to other places. For info about Sun Ripened Kernels, go to "http://www.sunrk.com.au" - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 08:56:37 -0400 From: "Sheldon T. Hall" Subject: PC RAM for the SparcLX To: Dwight McKay , On Thursday, June 22, 2000 2:48 AM, Craig Dewick wrote: [in response to my message about using commodity PC RAM of the correct spec in an LX] > The catch is that the RAM *must* be 60 ns (or at a stretch, 70 ns) to work > reliably, and it *must* all have the same type of parity. Single-bit > parity SIMM's (not full parity) are the correct ones for LC, LC-X's, and > LX's, but I've never tried full-parity SIMM's so I can't verify that they > work, although you seem to believe they do, so it could well be true! I assure you the full-parity (36 bit wide) PC SIMMs in my LX work fine. Except for a couple of extended power outages, it's been up 24x7 since I put the RAM in. The LX's spec is for 33-bit-wide FPM 60ns parity RAM. Whether it uses the extra 3 bits in my 36-bit-wide 60ns FPM sticks, I know not, but it certainly doesn't object to them. > The key factors are matched access speed, and matched parity type. This > also applies to IPX's and other machines which take 72 pin RAM modules > (except the SLC which *requires* full-parity 4 meg SIMM's). Right, mate! I'm sorry I didn't emphasize the required "sameness." FWIW, my LX with the PC memory has never reported any memory problems, but my IPX with Sun-barcoded SIMMs (of the correct part number, even) has reported two parity errors in 3 years. Different memory locations, natch, and not repeatable. So, on balance, I'd say that PC memory of the correct spec, used in matched sets, will work fine in an LX. Even if it's heresy. -Shel - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 08:57:46 -0500 From: BHamill@mbcm.org Subject: PPPoE and Solaris To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com "Peter T. Hraber" asked: >(1) Have you had experience, good or bad, with [Covad]? Not at home, but at work, I've been satisfied with Covad. I'm in Minnesota; our ISP, onvoy.net, contracted Covad to do their DSL work. I keep reading all these horror stories about how difficult DSL is to get installed and keep working, but my installation was done on time and the line has been stable ever since- in the 10 months or so since installation, we've had one short (couple of hours) unplanned outage. I don't know what they install for home users, but they sold us a Flowpoint 2200 DSL router, which in addition to its main task, also can do NAT, DHCP, and broadcast RIP, and has a four-port hub built in. Flowpoint (which is a Cabletron subsidiary) sells a firewall product for the router, but we already use another firewall, so I never investigated it. Sorry I can't help you with the other questions. Barry Hamill Info Services bhamill@mbcm.org (612) 871-3300 x2216 - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 10:52:27 -0400 (EDT) From: der Mouse Subject: PPPoE and Solaris To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com > (2) Have you found any PPPoE client software that will run on Solaris 2.6? > (or any Solaris? - all available seems to be for Linux kernel 2.2) > The alternative seems to be a hardware gateway/router... Only if you're hell-bent on Solaris. I have PPPoE code that works for me on NetBSD/sparc, so if your machine is one NetBSD supports.... der Mouse mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 17:03:06 +1000 (EST) From: Craig Dewick Subject: Revisions regarding Ultra machines... To: Dwight McKay > Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2000 10:31:06 -0400 > From: David Muccioli > Subject: Revisions regarding Ultra machines... > To: suns-at-home@net-kitchen.com > > A word of caution to those considering buying the Ultra-2. > > This machine has been END-OF LIFEd by sun. {Insert name of our very > large Sun reseller here} has told us there are no more to be had (we got > the last six). But they are becoming plentiful in the surplus market. Just contact MCE and ask how many Ultra-2's and -30's they are currently pushing through their inventory! 8-) > My employer had to backtrack eighteen Ultra-2 order and > order newer machines like the E-220r or the E-420r. While we knew that > the product was being discontinued this year, it was more sudden than we > expected and we are now left with the task of fielding a new server > platform which has been largely untested (by us). In addition, I fear > that the SBUS components are disappearing. Sun has already discontinued > the TGX+ framebuffers (Video card) and is no longer producing the TGX > chipset so there won't be any vendors making TGX clones either. I > expect that the rest of the SBUS peripherals will die the same painful > death in short order. You seem to have a very short-sighted view of the Sbus platform. There are uncountable numbers of Sbus machines out there in the marketplace, so just because Sun stops shipping Ultra-2's (thus ending their official support of the Sbus standard for supported machines), it does not mean other companies will stop producing Sbus cards overnight. Magma won't stop making Sbus serial port cards, and Mmac won't stop making their Sbus version of the SunVideo+ card just because Sun have stopped shipping Ultra-2's. There are more Sbus Sun's out there than PCI ones, and until machines like Sparc 20's and Ultra-2's become extremely old hat (SS-20's where still being sold new by Sun until the start of 1998), Sbus will still be a thriving standard. There are sooo many TGX/TGX+ Sbus framebuffers out there that I don't see why you are worrying about them becoming scarce. Sun charge too much for them anyway. 8-) > My experience witht the Ultra-5 is that it's slow. We have a few > particularly crippled ones at work. They get better as you add *lots* > more memory. But, if you're looking for a workstation, I'd suggest the > Ultra10 or Ultra30. Ultra-10's can be had for about $5000 and yield > resonable performance. The newer ones have a 440Mhz processor. Ultra-5's and 10's are crippled because they have IDE and not SCSI as the main disk interface. IDE cannot handle the sustained burst writes that SCSI is designed to cope with, and any process which does very heavy disk i/o will bog down on the IDE device drivers as a result. That's why lots of people just get a PCI SCSI card and forget the machines ever came with native IDE. > I was going to get the Ultra 5 on student special, but was advised = > that if I could > swing it, the Ultra 2 would yield *much* better performance in = > almost all cases, > and with a 360 Mhz CPU w/256K L2 cache was not half the machine the > = > Ultra 2 > is (literally). Ultra-2's are a lot better, esp. since you get native SCSI. Of course Sun are pushing Ultra-5's and 10's like crazy since they made so many of them in an attempt to build PC-like workstations, and it's backfired. That's why they sell so cheaply compared to Ultra-2's, etc. of similar config. Personally, I would prefer to buy an Ultra-30 (also discontinued, but that's only because Sun now have the Ultra-60 and -80 instead) over an Ultra-5 or -10, but I have a legacy requirement for Sbus cards, so I can't abandon Sbus straight away. Regards, Craig. -- Craig Dewick. Send email to "cdewick@lios.apana.org.au" Point a web browser at 'http://lios.apana.org.au/~cdewick/sun_shack.html' to access my archive of Sun information and links to other places. For info about Sun Ripened Kernels, go to "http://www.sunrk.com.au" - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 08:34:04 -0500 From: "\"Jazzery \\\"Jazz\\\" Jaapar\"" Subject: SS2 Memory Problem To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com This may seem like an easy question to answer, but for the life of me I can't seem to take out the 30 pin memory sticks out of an SS2 and I can't seem to find any references on how to do this as well. I would appreciate any help on this matter. Also, is there a way to tell how much memory that's present on a 30 pin stick? Thanks! - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 16:30:09 -0400 From: Adam Stouffer Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V13 #18 To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com WTB: Sbus ethernet card I'm looking for a reasonably priced sbus ethernet card for my SS2 thats compatible with OpenBSD. It will be doing NAT for my DSL line. Thanks. (http://www.openbsd.org/sparc.html#hardware) Adam - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 18:57:31 -0400 From: "Robert Blackshaw" Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V13 #18 To: Re PC SIMMS in Suns, my 3/60 is running happily on PC 1 meg SIMMS but I understand that they do not like the 3-chip versions. Also with regard to the user with the 3/60s I have OS 4.1.1 U1 and think I remember how to write tapes and can also burn ROMs if I get the files from the archive. Currently up to my a__ in alligators, but if you are patient - can do. Also have a couple of Emulex ESDI to SCSI boards cluttering the shop. Ciao, Bob - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2000 19:07:37 EEST From: "v b" Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V13 #18 To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com >From: Dwight McKay (The Moderator) >Reply-To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com >To: Suns-at-Home-List@tigger.net-kitchen.com >Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V13 #18 >Date: Wed, 21 Jun 00 21:04:18 EST >In addition an Ultra 5 has an IDE and a SCSI interface, can >easily be upgraded to UltraSPARC-II @360MHz (possibly even 440MHz), > etc., >etc. I need to make a correction here. I wrote that the Ultra5 has an IDE and SCSI interface. It just so turns out that we spec'ed out two Ultra5s and an Ultra10 for servers, and they DO NOT have any kind of SCSI controller(s) built in. They do have EIDE, however, which allows you to connect the latest and greatest IDE/EIDE drives available for the PC-can. However, when talking to the Sun rep on the phone, I was told that: a) if we choose to have the machines preconfigured with SCSI drives (EIDE was a performance issue), we would have to purchase (a) SCSI controller card(s) for the machines and connect the SCSI disk(s) externally, for which we would also have to purchase Sun disk packs (Sun's external disk enclosures). The SCSI drives, I was told, will NOT fit internally into an Ultra5/10. I don't see why they wouldn't, but that's what she (the rep) told me. And this was talking directly to Sun. b) if we wanted just the SCSI disks (with the controller / disk packs), we would not be able to get support from Sun, since stripping out EIDE drives is not covered under Sun maintenance agreement. This would not be covered even though Sun would be the one to take the EIDE drives out before shipping the systems to us. c) if we still wanted SCSI and maintenance at all cost, machines would have to come preconfigured with internal EIDE drives, whether we choose to use them or not, and we would be charged extra for all the necessary SCSI components. ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com - ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2000 00:09:13 -0500 From: Garry Garrett Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V13 #18 To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com > >sunthar resar wrote: > > > Please help me to figureout how to disconnect > > > the users who are idle for more than one hour > > > automatically. > > > >There's a program called idled which does this, written by Michael > >P. Crider. Its home page doesn't seem to exist any more but you can > >download the source from Debian or SuSE Linux (probably a number of > >other places, too) and compile it yourself. Try, for example: > > > > ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/non-free/ > > source/admin/idled_1.16.orig.tar.gz > > Ah, but why complicate? Download tcsh from sunfreeware.com, and configure > /etc/csh.cshrc to contain the following line: > > set auto-logout=60 (logs you out after 60 seconds) > > Now set all your users to have tcsh as their default shell in /etc/passwd, > and you'll be on your merry way. > Naturally after that, `man tcsh` is in order. Are you sure? In plain csh there is a shell variable "autologout" (no dash) that you can set to do this same type of thing, measured in minutes: set autologout-60 # log out after 60 min. of inactivity Of course, to make this global, you add this line to the file /etc/.login which all C Shells process upon login. As tcsh is a superset of csh (so I've heard), I would think that this csh-ism should work on tcsh too. For that matter there is an environment variable, TMOUT, that you can set that works for Korn Shell (might work for Bourne too) that is supposed to work the same way. Set it in /etc/profile to make it global. Some of my co-workers have not figured out why TMOUT doesn't "work on me". I haven't pointed out to them yet that I use csh. :-) Oh, in /etc/profile, don't forget to use Bourne shell syntax as it is used by both sh and ksh, and sh. In other words, say: TMOUT=60 export TMOUT not... export TMOUT=60 Even if you only use ksh and not sh, some things (cron, make) mindlessly fire of "sh" to run things under, no matter what your shell is set to, and these Bourne shells will barf on your Korn shell syntax. (for this same reason, keep your .profile Bourne shell compatible and point the variable ENV to a file [.kshrc] that contains any Korn-isms, like aliases). -- Garry Garrett http://monarch.papillion.ne.us/~ggarrett http://garrett.no-ip.com/ ._o o __o |> <\ -\<, 4 . . .. /> . . .. ...O/ O - ------------------------------ End of Suns-at-Home Digest ******************************