Very Computer

: Looking for good/bad experiences with the latest release of Solaris 2.4.

: We are looking into setting up a dozen stations for a development department.
: Is it worth it?

: -Alan Narup
:  IDS - Los Angeles

I just started messing with Solaris x86 and I am quite pleased with it.
You can now do something useful with those Intel boxes. :-)

Paul Suchomel

Looking for good/bad experiences with the latest release of Solaris 2.4.

We are looking into setting up a dozen stations for a development department.
Is it worth it?

-Alan Narup
 IDS - Los Angeles

Quote:>Looking for good/bad experiences with the latest release of Solaris 2.4.
>We are looking into setting up a dozen stations for a development
department.
>Is it worth it?

On the other hand, CPU seems fine, but even with an Adaptec 2940 disk
controller, i/o doesn't feel good (basically the system freezes during disk
i/o).  Perhaps if these are single user machines this may not be an issue,
since it seems to me that the system isn't slow exactly, it's just not doing
well at multitasking i/o (ok, for you who know out there, let me know why
this is not true, and how to tweak my systems).  

Also, perhaps it is just an issue with our systems, but maint. (software) on
our SS5 was significantly less than our  x86 boxes.  I belive we were quoted
for "workgroup servers" for both (uni-processor), but maybe they are
considered different classes - best to check it out.

I don't really think you save that much, or any if you check compairable
systems.  Of course this is partially because you pay ~$600-$3000 for the x86
license, but a quality high-end PC is not as cheap as it appears.  (high end
video, decent monitor, decent network, etc)

Then there is software support.  Sun SPARC probably has one of the highest
availability rates for software around.  This can not be said for the x86
platform at this time.  Hopefully this will change.

Basically, I think you end up spending more time than is useful working with
these systems than it's worth, and you could just drop in a SPARC 5/110 and
make your support, and usability much easier for little if no penalty in
performance.  

But don't get me wrong - I am very pleased Sun has the x86 support done.  And
I can't wait till PPC.

There.  I've started another flame war!  ;-)

-john