I've been away from this newsgroup for longer than I'd care
to admit. I've been using Sun systems since shortly after
I held the first one in my hands at HP's Computer Colloquium
lecture series March 4, 1982. For the curious, the origin of
the name "SUN" is Stanford University Network. A scan I just
did of the original announcement can be seen here:

[600KB]

I also hate to admit what I've paid for Sun systems over the
years from Sun-3/60 to IPX to SPARCstation 10, SPARCstation 20,
etc., so I was curious how inexpensively I could get back in
the game to get up to speed with Solaris 10.

Would you believe under US$300? It's true! :-)

Beginning with a $217 "open box special" Compaq SR5501P from
a local Office Depot, a $40 4GB DDR2-PC6400 RAM upgrade, and
a "spare" 300GB Maxtor hard drive, I did it. Not only does
it run Solaris 10, it triple-boots into Fedora 9 and Windows
Vista SP1 as well. This is an AMD Athlon x2 64-bit system.

The Solaris and system information can be viewed here:



There were only 3 problems with Solaris 10, all solvable:

1. Running both the Sun install-check v.1.4 and the Sun
Device Detection Tool on Office Depot's display model
revealed I needed the nfo Ethernet driver available at:



It's free, and it works.

2. System Registration was a nightmare; the Sun GUI was a
typical POS and constantly failed. The folks at Sun's
Solaris_Installation_Support(at)sun.com hadn't a clue
and only provided wrong information. After poking around
the system, I "discovered" that bringing up a root shell
and running updatemanager and clicking on its "Register
System" would work, and thus I could get patches. Or so
I thought.

3. updatemanager itself is another POS. It would download
the *.jar patch updates but it wouldn't install them. A
Google search revealed that PCA, which is available at
, is the only
way to get patches installed properly under Solaris 10
(or *any* other version of Solaris and SunOS).

So, now the system works great, just installed Sun Studio 12
and all the Solaris freeware stuff, and I'm a happy camper.

Can anyone beat that US$300 for a 64-bit Solaris 10 system?

:-)

Thad.Floryan@gmail.com wrote:
> I've been away from this newsgroup for longer than I'd care
> to admit. I've been using Sun systems since shortly after
> I held the first one in my hands at HP's Computer Colloquium
> lecture series March 4, 1982. For the curious, the origin of
> the name "SUN" is Stanford University Network. A scan I just
> did of the original announcement can be seen here:
>
> [600KB]
>
> I also hate to admit what I've paid for Sun systems over the
> years from Sun-3/60 to IPX to SPARCstation 10, SPARCstation 20,
> etc., so I was curious how inexpensively I could get back in
> the game to get up to speed with Solaris 10.
>
> Would you believe under US$300? It's true! :-)
>
> Beginning with a $217 "open box special" Compaq SR5501P from
> a local Office Depot, a $40 4GB DDR2-PC6400 RAM upgrade, and
> a "spare" 300GB Maxtor hard drive, I did it. Not only does
> it run Solaris 10, it triple-boots into Fedora 9 and Windows
> Vista SP1 as well. This is an AMD Athlon x2 64-bit system.
>
> The Solaris and system information can be viewed here:
>
>
>
> There were only 3 problems with Solaris 10, all solvable:
>
> 1. Running both the Sun install-check v.1.4 and the Sun
> Device Detection Tool on Office Depot's display model
> revealed I needed the nfo Ethernet driver available at:
>
>
>
> It's free, and it works.
>
> 2. System Registration was a nightmare; the Sun GUI was a
> typical POS and constantly failed. The folks at Sun's
> Solaris_Installation_Support(at)sun.com hadn't a clue
> and only provided wrong information. After poking around
> the system, I "discovered" that bringing up a root shell
> and running updatemanager and clicking on its "Register
> System" would work, and thus I could get patches. Or so
> I thought.
>
> 3. updatemanager itself is another POS. It would download
> the *.jar patch updates but it wouldn't install them. A
> Google search revealed that PCA, which is available at
> , is the only
> way to get patches installed properly under Solaris 10
> (or *any* other version of Solaris and SunOS).
>
> So, now the system works great, just installed Sun Studio 12
> and all the Solaris freeware stuff, and I'm a happy camper.
>
> Can anyone beat that US$300 for a 64-bit Solaris 10 system?
>
> :-)

Easily! Sun Ultra 10 workstatation < $100. 40 GB IDE disk salvaged
from a PC someone threw away. CRT monitor salvaged from curbside. I've
had about three years of use from it so far. I have three Ultra 10s and
an Ultra 5 that make up my home lab. I can do what I want with them,
when I want to. No approvals required from security or change control.
Since I AM the management, management approval is easy to obtain. :-)

One of these days I might look at upgrading to slightly more modern
hardware but only when it's really cheap!


Most of the hardware at curbside these days is 8-10 years old but,
assuming the box has enough RAM, you can install Solaris on an old PC
for nothing.

On Fri, 8 Aug 2008 08:50:01 -0700 (PDT), "Thad.Floryan@gmail.com" wrote:

>Can anyone beat that US$300 for a 64-bit Solaris 10 system?

Easy. How about $20 for a Sun Netra T100 with 64 bit Sparc and 256
meg RAM? Runs Solaris 10 very nicely with 2 x 9 gig SCSI HD.
Also runs SRSS and Windows connector.

You got done.

Barry
=====
Home page
http://members.iinet.net.au/~barry.og

On 2008-08-09, Barry OGrady wrote:
> On Fri, 8 Aug 2008 08:50:01 -0700 (PDT), "Thad.Floryan@gmail.com" wrote:
>
>>Can anyone beat that US$300 for a 64-bit Solaris 10 system?
>
> Easy. How about $20 for a Sun Netra T100

$20? I got my T105 for nothing...

)


--
"Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain
and presumptuous desire for a second one."
[email me at huge {at} huge (dot) org uk]

Sun blade 100 off ebay

Huge wrote:

>On 2008-08-09, Barry OGrady wrote:
>> On Fri, 8 Aug 2008 08:50:01 -0700 (PDT), "Thad.Floryan@gmail.com" wrote:
>>
>>>Can anyone beat that US$300 for a 64-bit Solaris 10 system?
>>
>> Easy. How about $20 for a Sun Netra T100
>
>$20? I got my T105 for nothing...
>
>)

Thad.Floryan@gmail.com wrote:
> I've been away from this newsgroup for longer than I'd care
> to admit. I've been using Sun systems since shortly after
> I held the first one in my hands at HP's Computer Colloquium
> lecture series March 4, 1982. For the curious, the origin of
> the name "SUN" is Stanford University Network. A scan I just
> did of the original announcement can be seen here:
>
> [600KB]
>
> I also hate to admit what I've paid for Sun systems over the
> years from Sun-3/60 to IPX to SPARCstation 10, SPARCstation 20,
> etc., so I was curious how inexpensively I could get back in
> the game to get up to speed with Solaris 10.
>
> Would you believe under US$300? It's true! :-)
>
> Beginning with a $217 "open box special" Compaq SR5501P from
> a local Office Depot, a $40 4GB DDR2-PC6400 RAM upgrade, and
> a "spare" 300GB Maxtor hard drive, I did it. Not only does
> it run Solaris 10, it triple-boots into Fedora 9 and Windows
> Vista SP1 as well. This is an AMD Athlon x2 64-bit system.
>
> The Solaris and system information can be viewed here:
>
>
>
> There were only 3 problems with Solaris 10, all solvable:
>
> 1. Running both the Sun install-check v.1.4 and the Sun
> Device Detection Tool on Office Depot's display model
> revealed I needed the nfo Ethernet driver available at:
>
>
>
> It's free, and it works.
>
> 2. System Registration was a nightmare; the Sun GUI was a
> typical POS and constantly failed. The folks at Sun's
> Solaris_Installation_Support(at)sun.com hadn't a clue
> and only provided wrong information. After poking around
> the system, I "discovered" that bringing up a root shell
> and running updatemanager and clicking on its "Register
> System" would work, and thus I could get patches. Or so
> I thought.
>
> 3. updatemanager itself is another POS. It would download
> the *.jar patch updates but it wouldn't install them. A
> Google search revealed that PCA, which is available at
> , is the only
> way to get patches installed properly under Solaris 10
> (or *any* other version of Solaris and SunOS).
>
> So, now the system works great, just installed Sun Studio 12
> and all the Solaris freeware stuff, and I'm a happy camper.
>
> Can anyone beat that US$300 for a 64-bit Solaris 10 system?

VirtualBox is totally free...



--
/"\ Join the ASCII | Thommy M. Malmström
\ / ribbon campaign | AB Hardeberga IT
X against HTML mail | Skiffervägen 23, 224 78 Lund
/ \ and postings | +46 70 969 57 93
================================================== =====================
http://www.at-hardeberga.com thommym (at) at-hardeberga.com
================================================== =====================
"The box said 'Windows 2000 Server or better', so I installed Solaris."
================================================== =====================

On Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:54:16 GMT, "Thommy M. Malmström" wrote:

>Thad.Floryan@gmail.com wrote:
>> I've been away from this newsgroup for longer than I'd care
>> to admit. I've been using Sun systems since shortly after
>> I held the first one in my hands at HP's Computer Colloquium
>> lecture series March 4, 1982. For the curious, the origin of
>> the name "SUN" is Stanford University Network. A scan I just
>> did of the original announcement can be seen here:
>>
>> [600KB]
>>
>> I also hate to admit what I've paid for Sun systems over the
>> years from Sun-3/60 to IPX to SPARCstation 10, SPARCstation 20,
>> etc., so I was curious how inexpensively I could get back in
>> the game to get up to speed with Solaris 10.
>>
>> Would you believe under US$300? It's true! :-)
>>
>> Beginning with a $217 "open box special" Compaq SR5501P from
>> a local Office Depot, a $40 4GB DDR2-PC6400 RAM upgrade, and
>> a "spare" 300GB Maxtor hard drive, I did it. Not only does
>> it run Solaris 10, it triple-boots into Fedora 9 and Windows
>> Vista SP1 as well. This is an AMD Athlon x2 64-bit system.
>>
>> The Solaris and system information can be viewed here:
>>
>>
>>
>> There were only 3 problems with Solaris 10, all solvable:
>>
>> 1. Running both the Sun install-check v.1.4 and the Sun
>> Device Detection Tool on Office Depot's display model
>> revealed I needed the nfo Ethernet driver available at:
>>
>>
>>
>> It's free, and it works.
>>
>> 2. System Registration was a nightmare; the Sun GUI was a
>> typical POS and constantly failed. The folks at Sun's
>> Solaris_Installation_Support(at)sun.com hadn't a clue
>> and only provided wrong information. After poking around
>> the system, I "discovered" that bringing up a root shell
>> and running updatemanager and clicking on its "Register
>> System" would work, and thus I could get patches. Or so
>> I thought.
>>
>> 3. updatemanager itself is another POS. It would download
>> the *.jar patch updates but it wouldn't install them. A
>> Google search revealed that PCA, which is available at
>> , is the only
>> way to get patches installed properly under Solaris 10
>> (or *any* other version of Solaris and SunOS).
>>
>> So, now the system works great, just installed Sun Studio 12
>> and all the Solaris freeware stuff, and I'm a happy camper.
>>
>> Can anyone beat that US$300 for a 64-bit Solaris 10 system?
>
>VirtualBox is totally free...

A Sun Netra 100/105/200 can be had free or cheap and Solaris 10
installs with no dramas. I also installed Sunray Server and Windows
Connector with no problems, and it all works.

Barry
=====
Home page
http://members.iinet.net.au/~barry.og

On Aug 8, 11:50 am, "Thad.Flor...@gmail.com"
wrote:
(...)

Most interesting, thanks for sharing.

On Sat, 23 Aug 2008 08:40:01 -0700 (PDT), SQ wrote:

>On Aug 8, 11:50 am, "Thad.Flor...@gmail.com"
>wrote:
>(...)
>
>Most interesting, thanks for sharing.

You find (...) interesting?

Barry
=====
Home page
http://members.iinet.net.au/~barry.og

I don't know about the premise of "Least expensive".
I am tired of using obsolete equipment like Ultra 10. I suppose it was
pretty fast for its day some 10 years ago. I have a half a gig of RAM
in it but the browser is very slow in it. I mainly run X-windows on
it.

I just upgraded to Ultra 40 M2 - no regrets. Very fast machine with
several Gigs of RAM.

Computer hardware has dropped in price considerably in the last 10
years. You can get a nice x86 machine with Solaris 10.

I am not sure if x86 was acceptable to the OP though.

On Aug 24, 5:19 pm, SQ wrote:
> I don't know about the premise of "Least expensive".
> I am tired of using obsolete equipment like Ultra 10. I suppose it was
> pretty fast for its day some 10 years ago. I have a half a gig of RAM
> in it but the browser is very slow in it. I mainly run X-windows on
> it.
>
> I just upgraded to Ultra 40 M2 - no regrets. Very fast machine with
> several Gigs of RAM.
>
> Computer hardware has dropped in price considerably in the last 10
> years. You can get a nice x86 machine with Solaris 10.
>
> I am not sure if x86 was acceptable to the OP though.

It wasn't that an x86 would not have been acceptable, it was that an
AMD64 x2 system from Office Depot was so inexpensive compared to my
prior Sun purchases. Would you believe US$18K for a Sun 3/60? That's
what they used to cost new, discounted for developers.

I could start a computer museum with some of the iron I still have
here: Sun 3/60s, IPXs, SS20s, etc. even 3 functional 3B1 systems.

For less than US$300 I was able to buy a modern system and get back
up to speed with Solaris 10 quickly. A lot's the same from 2.5.1 but
there are plenty of new procedural changes -- svcadm was the first
that caught my attention -- and I'm still perusing all the info I
downloaded from docs.sun.com in PDF form. That alone (PDFs) is a
nice change -- no more the "wall" of manuals (though I still have
one set for SunOS 4.1.1).

The only aspect of the system I don't have tuned to my satisfaction
is printing (to various HP LaserJets). This has always been a hassle
with SunOS/Solaris (for me) for 15+ years now. I finally downloaded
the Sun freeware CUPs distribution and still need to "play" with that.

Thad.Floryan@gmail.com wrote:
> On Aug 24, 5:19 pm, SQ wrote:
>> I don't know about the premise of "Least expensive".
>> I am tired of using obsolete equipment like Ultra 10. I suppose it was
>> pretty fast for its day some 10 years ago. I have a half a gig of RAM
>> in it but the browser is very slow in it. I mainly run X-windows on
>> it.
>>
>> I just upgraded to Ultra 40 M2 - no regrets. Very fast machine with
>> several Gigs of RAM.
>>
>> Computer hardware has dropped in price considerably in the last 10
>> years. You can get a nice x86 machine with Solaris 10.
>>
>> I am not sure if x86 was acceptable to the OP though.
>
> It wasn't that an x86 would not have been acceptable, it was that an
> AMD64 x2 system from Office Depot was so inexpensive compared to my
> prior Sun purchases. Would you believe US$18K for a Sun 3/60? That's
> what they used to cost new, discounted for developers.
>
> I could start a computer museum with some of the iron I still have
> here: Sun 3/60s, IPXs, SS20s, etc. even 3 functional 3B1 systems.
>
> For less than US$300 I was able to buy a modern system and get back
> up to speed with Solaris 10 quickly. A lot's the same from 2.5.1 but
> there are plenty of new procedural changes -- svcadm was the first
> that caught my attention -- and I'm still perusing all the info I
> downloaded from docs.sun.com in PDF form. That alone (PDFs) is a
> nice change -- no more the "wall" of manuals (though I still have
> one set for SunOS 4.1.1).
>
> The only aspect of the system I don't have tuned to my satisfaction
> is printing (to various HP LaserJets). This has always been a hassle
> with SunOS/Solaris (for me) for 15+ years now. I finally downloaded
> the Sun freeware CUPs distribution and still need to "play" with that.

Up until Solaris 10, you had to sacrifice one small goat or two medium
chickens to get printing to work.

With Solaris 10, it's a breeze. You crank up a program called prtadmin
or something similar. It asks you, Windows fashion, for the
manufacturer (pick it from list) and then for the model (pick from list)
and you're done! I nearly had my second heart attack when I
encountered this for the first time. If the printer is connected via
the network, you have to enter the IP address.

For Solaris 9 and earlier versions, you need HP Jetadmin software for
printers connected via the network and the afore mentioned goat or two
chickens.

On Aug 27, 4:54 am, "Richard B. Gilbert"
wrote:
> [...]
> Up until Solaris 10, you had to sacrifice one small goat or two medium
> chickens to get printing to work.

Ain't that the truth! :-)

> [...]
> With Solaris 10, it's a breeze. You crank up a program called prtadmin
> or something similar. It asks you, Windows fashion, for the
> manufacturer (pick it from list) and then for the model (pick from list)
> and you're done! I nearly had my second heart attack when I
> encountered this for the first time. If the printer is connected via
> the network, you have to enter the IP address.

Hmmm, that was exactly what I attempted within the first few
hours after installing the system. I thought to myself "Hey, just like
Windows and some of the Linux systems!". For the first printer I chose
my LJ4050n (networked with JetDirect), accepted the offered driver
(Foo
something), and entered its IP address. Nada. No test page, nothing. I
spent over 10 hours with Sun's docs and various tests and still nada,
so I put this effort on the back burner a few weeks ago.

The LJ4050n printer is working fine from my Windows boxes, Solaris 2,
7 and 8, and every Linux box here (9 of them: SLED 10 SP1; Fedora 2,
3,
8 and 9; Red Hat 9; Ubuntu 7.10 and 8.04; and PCLinuxOS). I didn't
even
try to setup my LJ P2015n given how a ubiquitous LJ4050n doesn't
print.

I was "playing" with CUPS earlier today from the Sun FreeWare archive,
and that's not printing to the LJ4050n, either.

Setting up printing should NOT be this troublesome, especially when
everything else (file sharing, etc.) was essentially trivial to setup.

Google searches on this subject are giving me a bad feeling, like
what I had with attempting to register the system, contacting Sun
Support, and having to find the solution on my own (along with finding
PCA for getting/applying patches) as I wrote in the opening post in
this thread.

I'm at the current patch level for Solaris 10u5, so I'll back-out
CUPS,
drink some more coffee while reading Sun's LP admin docs, and make
another attempt later with the "stock" printing suite.

> For Solaris 9 and earlier versions, you need HP Jetadmin software for
> printers connected via the network and the afore mentioned goat or two
> chickens.

Heh, I'm really tempted at this point to either install a newer
JetAdmin
package or HP's new suite from SourceForge and be done with it.
Printing
is not rocket science, and at my age time is precious. :-)

Thad.Floryan@gmail.com wrote:

>
> Hmmm, that was exactly what I attempted within the first few
> hours after installing the system. I thought to myself "Hey, just like
> Windows and some of the Linux systems!". For the first printer I chose
> my LJ4050n (networked with JetDirect), accepted the offered driver
> (Foo
> something), and entered its IP address. Nada. No test page, nothing. I
> spent over 10 hours with Sun's docs and various tests and still nada,
> so I put this effort on the back burner a few weeks ago.
>

try printmgr if it helps. Be sure to enable all services related to
printing, like ipp
pike-root% svcs \*prin\*
STATE STIME FMRI
disabled Aug_27 svc:/application/print/server:default
disabled Aug_27 svc:/application/cde-printinfo:default
disabled Aug_27 svc:/application/print/ipp-listener:default
online Aug_27 svc:/application/print/ppd-cache-update:default
offline Aug_27 svc:/application/print/rfc1179:default


http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/features.../using_ipp.jsp

hth,

gerard