[TriLUG] sparc 4 hardware

[Greg Brown]

All signs point to junk; no iptables and I can't use both ethernet 
interfaces plus it sounds exceptionally slow.  Does anyone have any use 
for a Sparc4 (working keyboard, mouse, and monitor), and a Sparc LX?  
If so, it's yours.

Does anyone have a good idea what to do with this hardware?  First 
Sparc in space?  Snail mail it to a random address in China?  Donate to 
some 3rd world "in need of computers" program?  Test the "boat anchor" 
theory for real?  Set it by the side of the road with "Free to good 
home" sign to see how long it takes for someone to pick it up?  Hood 
ornament?   Speed bump?

Greg


On Monday, Oct 7, 2002, at 20:12 America/New_York, Tom 'spot' Callaway 
wrote:

> On Mon, 7 Oct 2002, Greg Brown wrote:
>
>> Is a Sparc4 system with 32 megs of ram and a 500 meg scsi drive even 
>> worth
>> loading a Linux distro on?  I was thinking of using it as a firewall. 
>>  But
>> here's what I don't recall - the Sparc4 had two ethernet ports - one 
>> DIX/AUI
>> and one RJ-45.  Can I use both ports at the same time is it only one 
>> or the
>> other in use at one time?
>>
>> Assuming that I can use both ethernet ports can I load Mandrake 9.0 
>> with only
>> what is required to support routing and iptables and perhaps one or 
>> two other
>> goodies?   Given the vintage of the hardware is this totally 
>> pointless?
>
> Mandrake boots a 2.2 kernel for sparc32 installs. Hence, no iptables.
> Aurora SPARC Linux is currently the only Linux distribution using a 2.4
> kernel for sparc32 (Debian is currently considering doing the same).
>
> But I'm not sure you want it as a firewall. It'd be a hell of a network
> bottleneck, unless you only run at 10base.
>
> ~spot
> ---
> Tom "spot" Callaway <tcallawa(a)redhat*com> Red Hat Sales Engineer
> Sair Linux and GNU Certified Administrator (LCA)
> Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE)
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>
> The words and opinions reflected in this message do not necessarily
> reflect those of my employer, Red Hat, and belong solely to me.
>
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>
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