Slackware For Sparc

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Posted by ryuzaki0 on Tuesday October 31, 2000 @02:02AM from the a-little-patrick-in-your-life dept.

FreakSoft writes "The first devel release of Slackware for the Sun Sparc was released. It isn't guaranteed to run anything, but soon the bugs will be worked out. For the time being the release can be downloaded from their site, if it doesn't work post the bugs and don't complain. David Cantrell is awesome."

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in response to RH dropping sun support? by B1ood · 2000-10-30 21:05 · Score: 2

i wonder how much this announcement is in response to redhat's decision to cease to release their sparc-based distribution. anyways, it's good to see one of the big linux distributions supporting sun hardware, i for one don't like paying for solaris.

B1ood

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Note to self: pasty-skinned programmers ought not stand in the Mojave desert for multiple hours. -- John Carmack
SPARC by bjb · 2000-10-30 21:06 · Score: 2

It's cool to see another distribution for the SPARC, but I personally wouldn't run anything other than Solaris on one of these boxes. Yes, its a bit slower than Linux (I ran RedHat on an E3000 4/336 2GB machine for a little while), but currently the support for Solaris on these CPUs far surpasses any paltry Linux offerings I have run across.
Of course, it could just be a matter of time...

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Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
1. Re:SPARC by Just+Some+Guy · 2000-10-30 23:19 · Score: 2
  
  I had no trouble net-booting an SS5 off an i386 Debian box. I really didn't know what I was doing at the time, but I found several HOWTOs on the web that gave reasonably explicit instructions.
  OTOH, Solaris (version 7, at least) is painfully slow on my Sparcs (all 75MHz or lower). I keep Sol7 on the SS5 for when I get that dire need to play with CDE, but the IPC gets OpenBSD. It's small, as secure as you'd ever want, and reasonably quick even at 25MHz. Granted, it's mainly a syslog and Kerberos server, but I don't think you'd want to use these old boxen for workstations these days anyway.
  
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  Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
oops by Christopher+B.+Brown · 2000-10-30 21:08 · Score: 2

The download site is reporting back that it has no data; maybehaps they got the wrong URL?
How many architectures does this put Slackware up to?

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If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
1. Re:oops by Rendus · 2000-10-31 05:29 · Score: 2
  
  Last I heard (at Comdex I think it was) Patrick was looking into Slack/Alpha. But right now, 2 publicly accessable ports.
Proof that Slackware isn't dead. by nharmon · 2000-10-30 21:20 · Score: 2

This is going to make good material about why Slackware isn't dead. Remember back in the day when Slackware and Redhat were the only real distros in competition. I guess Slackware still holds a grudge =)

Anyway, although I'd agree that Slackware isn't the best distro for all applications, I think porting it to the Sparc is what it's best for.

I mean, Slackware is so stripped down with it's tar-based package management and so forth. When Slackware is sucessully ported, other distros will follow.

Now, can we please get Slackware on Mac? *smile*
1. Re:Proof that Slackware isn't dead. by afc · 2000-10-31 00:36 · Score: 2
  
  Care to explain what is this purported purity of Slackware that you love so much? Please, refrain from wishy-washy, subjective, emotionally laden expressions such as "cleanliness", "pure", "inner workings" etc. Explain, in strictly objective terms what is about Slackware that makes you tick.
  If in the end, it all boils down to having to work out most of the stuff by yourself, you might as well consider doing a bare bones Linux installation, i.e., no pre-packaged binaries at all, compile, create root and boot disks, repartition all by yourself. See how fun that is.
  Now after having done it, ponder about this: is it so much fun that you can positively state that you'll never, ever get tired of it? Those of us who have better things to do with what scarce time we have now better. That's why other distributions thrive.
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  Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
2. Re:Proof that Slackware isn't dead. by Rendus · 2000-10-31 05:40 · Score: 2
  
  I can install Apache+mod_perl+mod_ssl+PHP+FP+-insert more modules here- if I want. Try doing that with a package.
Where is Sparc Slack? by strredwolf · 2000-10-30 21:44 · Score: 2

I've checked on the FTP site and around the web site, and I don't see it!
But then, just putting Slack on a Sparc would be the best thing out there. Solaris' memory management isn't the best thing out there.

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WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";

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# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
this is not a release by blakestah · 2000-10-30 21:49 · Score: 2

This is the release of a packaging tool. From the linked URL

protopkg - Slackware .tgz Packaging Tool
========================================

This directory includes all the necessary source to put together "protopkg".
Protopkg will read prototype files to generate packages that can be
installed using the standard Slackware packaging tools. The *.template
files explain how the system works.

...

George Bush used to stick firecrackers in frogs, light them, and throw the frog in the air. So did Beavis. :)
Is Hemos "trolling"? by Fat+Lenny · 2000-10-30 22:07 · Score: 2

Don't believe anyone's links. There have been far too many times that I have unwittingly clicked a link to http://www.goatse.cx or misdirected on links to the Perl or Python websites. Go back to the Slashdot FAQ and look under #consideredharmful.

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fat lenny's gonna lick your brain today.
OH whee. by mindstrm · 2000-10-30 23:40 · Score: 2

Yay. This is news?
Lots of distros have worked on sparc in the past.

What's slackware want.. a medal for coming in last?
Clearing up misconceptions. by Marasmus · 2000-10-30 23:44 · Score: 5
Slackware/SPARC is in SUPER pre-release. It is downloadable only by rsync at this point. This release was intended to be a semi-private release to a small group of developers for the sake of stabilizing the codebase. After that was completed, an FTP-accessible release would be available.

Some important notes from the developers:
- Slackware/SPARC is not ready for production.
- SILO is a bit broken and needs some work.
- many other packages are very unstable, if installable.
- changes for these problems will be occuring DAILY and WILL BE UPDATED AS SUCH on the rsync server. A cron job is in place on their rsync server to create a fresh ISO every night at midnight.
I'd offer an FTP site with the daily updates of Slack4Sparc, but my bandwidth can't handle it. If any of you have bandwidth to do this job, I can get you going with the updates.

Props to my crew man Toby Freaksoft, though he tends to get a bit antsy about these sorts of things. :)

Whoever said slackware was dead should gingerly pry their cranium out of their colon. Thanks! :)
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.... um, i lost you after "0110100001101001".
Re:Package management by afc · 2000-10-31 01:06 · Score: 2

First you're wrong in presuming that installing things from source is a pain in RedHat (or Debian, for that matter - you know that there are package management systems other than RPM, right? ;-), you just have to download the source packages, tweak them to your heart's content, recreate the binary package and install that. But that would require one to learn RPM, God forbid.
You're right in that Slackware does have package management, after all. It only happens to suck.
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Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
Re:Grr... this figures. by Skapare · 2000-10-31 09:13 · Score: 2

Whether you choose Slackware or some other distribution depends on what you want from your system. What Slackware is good for is stability. It intentionally avoids having the latest greatest untested versions. Other distributions focus on trying to have the very latest of everything (and Debian probably succeeds the best at that). Some people want the latest. Some people want the stable stuff. I'm in the latter category, having used SLS, Slackware, Redhat, Suse, OpenBSD, Solaris, and many other unixen ages ago. My preferences now are for Slackware and OpenBSD. The only reason I'll still be running a couple Solaris machines is for compiling and testing some code I wrote. For my servers, it's Slackware and OpenBSD.

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now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Re:SPARC - what's wrong with OpenBSD? by LizardKing · 2000-10-31 16:21 · Score: 2

Why not run OpenBSD

I for one would love to run OpenBSD on my Sparc - but none of the BSD's support 24 bit framebuffers. If I could afford to donate a Leo framebuffer to the OpenBSD team I would, but at about £500 for a second hand one I can't really stretch to it.

Chris
Re:Why use Linux on Sparc?? by LizardKing · 2000-10-31 16:27 · Score: 3

If I have a Sparc driven machine why should I use this toy for Intel(and now also for Sparc) called Linux?

Your `toy' comment clearly indicates you're a troll, as does your bizarre claim to prefer using Solaris on an Intel box, however I'll credit you with a response.

Try running recent versions of Solaris on older Sun hardware - it's no longer supported and on some configurations simply wont work. In contrast, Linux (along with OpenBSD and NetBSD) runs faster than Solaris, and works with a wide range of old Sparc hardware. Couple this with the increasing number of applications available for Linux, and you have a very sound reason to use Linux on a Sparc.

Chris