[Linux-Biella] Computer obsoleto

[Federico Pistono]

On 2/27/06, Andrea Ferraris <andrea.ferraris a gmail.com> wrote:
> Federico Pistono ha scritto:
> >
> > Quasi sempre i commenti in evidenza sono molto più informativi e
> > completi dell'articolo stesso.
>
> Si`, ecco il primo:

Questo:

I've done a bit of installing on some Sparc machines over the past
year, so I know a little bit about running near-modern *nix on older
hardware. My first foray into it was when I picked up a Sparcstation 5
for free. It has a 110 MHz CPU, 256 MB of RAM, and an 8-bit
framebuffer. The first OS that I fully installed on it was Debian
Woody for Sparc. The first installation had GNOME; it ran, but not
really in a speedy fashion. I later switched back to lighter-weight
environments like fluxbox or XFCE.

When I picked up the Ultra 2 (2 x 300 MHz UltraSparc, 640 MB of RAM,
24-bit Creator3D framebuffer), it ran quite a bit better in Debian
Woody / GNOME, thanks to the faster processors and larger memory
space. Still nowhere near P3 level performance, but to be fair, this
was a workstation built in 1996, and was the fastest thing in its day.
When Solaris 10 came out in the free RTU license for multiprocessor
machines, I installed that. Java Desktop loads up a bit slowly, so I
usually log in with CDE, but the other aspects of the Ultra 2 are
great for a 10-year-old computer. It can even burn 8X CD-Rs without
stuttering. Your average PC back in 1996 probably wouldn't be able to
sustain the throughput for 6x, let alone 8x. Once the Ultra 2 became
the primary user of the 13W3 monitor due to its 24-bit framebuffer, I
relegated the Sparcstation 5 to headless duty, using Debian Woody,
then Sarge, and currently NetBSD 3.0.

Right now the Sparcstation series is a bit long in the tooth for
graphical use beyond an ultra-light window manager like XFCE, but they
were small form factor before there was a mainstream market for it.
Companies like Sun and SGI made small workstations with fast
processors and great throughput (and high margins and prices!).


--
Federico Pistono   Department of Computer Science - Verona, Italy
http://www.federicopistono.org :: http://pain.altervista.org/flatnukeuwcad/
http://pain.altervista.org :: Linux Registered User #340392

"Atra esterní ono thelduin. Mor'ranr lífa unin hjarta onr. Un du
evarínya ono varda."