New Tadpole SPARCbook RSN

Jon Masters wrote to us in regards to the SPARCBook 6500 from Tadpole. Solaris 9, 4 gigs of RAM and all that - but with the TiBooks and Linux working on laptops, how much do people need Solaris laptops?

Comments

More

[dolo666]

More kids on the block, the more M$ is kept in check, no?

Re:More

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nonsense.

Re:More

[Anonymous Coward]

Duh. You people are lame. 50% waste, per Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. One half the /. public should not be allowed here. That could include anyone who uses the term, 'karma whore'. Who even cares about karma? If you get karma, you deserve it. Even one liners deserve it if their spin on the article is effective.

Sometimes one line is all you need to prove a point. Some of the best posts here have been one liners.

If you care about it so much, why don't you have anything better to do than post crap like that?

I'm all for anything that forces M$ to dance. Aren't you? Prolly aren't.

Re:More

[Anonymous Coward]

thank you, jeffk. I will get off the interweb now. Oh... you're right about the buttons. I'll make them a little more legible now. ;)

Re:More

[shokk]

How about sales guys doing demos for applications written for Solaris sparc? Why spend the development $$$ to port to Solaris x86 just for sales guys to do demos when you can get a few of these babies to hand out to the sales guys.

Re:More

[Anonymous Coward]

If you get karma, you deserve it.

You haven't been here very long, have you? Those who deserve karma often don't get it, and those who get karma often don't deserve it. You'll learn if you stay long enough and pay attention to what actually goes on here.

Who would need it

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some apps that people need to run on Solaris on a mobile workstation -- government comes to mind.

Re:Who would need it

[niemtelkcuf]

yes we uses them the develop trusted solaris apps for the goverment.

Re:Who would need it

[A_Duck_Named_Ping]

bad idea.

bad enough when people take their work home with them, even worse when they take the server home with them!

Re:Who would need it

[einhverfr]

There are some apps that people need to run on Solaris on a mobile workstation -- government comes to mind.

Wow, you mean that I can run Government on one of these notebooks? Cool. How much do they cost? No Mr. Ashcroft, I didn't mean....

I'll take yours if you don't want it!

[Anonymous Coward]

with the TiBooks and Linux working on laptops, how much do people need Solaris laptops?

Where else can you get a 64-bit laptop?

Re:I'll take yours if you don't want it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Or runs production solaris only applications.

Re:I'll take yours if you don't want it!

[Anonymous Coward]

64 bits, what that's 8 dollars....

I'll take it :)

Re:I'll take yours if you don't want it!

[periscope]

Apple like to infer the Tibooks are 64bit machines. In reality, they're nice 32bit machines with full floating point and 128bit vector units - but they're still 32bit machines.

64bit is often defined as 64LP or LP64, meaning that longs and pointers are 64bit (i.e. full 64bit address space) - which the SPARCbook obviously is.

Jon (who will be buying one).

Re:I'll take yours if you don't want it!

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Apple like to infer the Tibooks are 64bit machines.

First things first. If they lead you to think something without saying it, they imply. If you think something without their saying it, you infer.

Now, where exactly did Apple imply that their PowerBooks are 64-bit systems? The only marketing or tech material I've seen that even mentions 64-bit computing is a little blurb on the vector units, saying that they handle "information in 128-bit chunks, compared to the 32- or 64-bit chunks in traditional chips."

Re:I'll take yours if you don't want it!

[thogard]

If you've ever looked at the power PC insturction set, you'll see its 16 bit :-)

Ever address has be loaded as two instructions, one for the high bits, one for the low. When you go to 64 bit mode then it takes 5 instructions just to load one address.

Re:I'll take yours if you don't want it!

[periscope]

That's not true at all. Read the specs.

If you load using IMMEDIATE addressing then you'll note that it will take up to five instructions to get at a 64bit address (4 additions and a shift) but if you're doing everything with the mindset of an Intel programmer then something is wrong. Usually, loads are performed as indirect offsets to registers - in which case a single instruction is all that is required (i.e. once you've loaded a pointer to the current stack frame then accesses can be relative to that).

Jon.

Re:I'll take yours if you don't want it!

[thogard]

I'm not thinking in the mindset of a intel coder... I hate their stuff. All the stack relitive stuff is sill 16 bits (or is it a few more?)

I feel that 5 instructions to load a 64 bit constant seems to be just wrong

Re:I'll take yours if you don't want it!

[periscope]

Hi,

Perhaps you're not using the Intel mindset, forgive me, this is Slashdot after all (read in to that what you will) :-)

The thing is, 16 bits is actually quite a reasonable address space for a function call or what have you, and in practice the benefits of fixed size instructions and the resulting size for immediates outweighs the relatively less common case of actually requiring to load an absolute address.

Jon.

I dunno...

[The Fanta Menace]

I have a pressing need to run Iplanet software on a laptop all the time ;)

Re:I dunno...

[CMiYC]

Is that so you can do eShopping at an eMall during an eVacation, all while taking a very real dump on a very real toliet?

Specifications

[Karamchand]

uhm. on the linked page it says "Solaris 8" and "2GB RAM"....? A bit unexact or did I miss something?
Thanks.

Re:Specifications

[echophase]

Look at the yellow, circlish image... "available in winter 2002".

Re:Specifications

[dumb kid]

You missed something.

The page says that the version with Solaris 9 and 4GB RAM is due in winter 2002.

Re:Specifications

[Mignon]

So the little yellow circle says "Available in Winter 2002." Hasn't that already passed in the Southern Hemisphere? Let's have those reviews, you upside-down people!

Re:Specifications

[evilviper]

Can't post reviews... Too busy watching the water in the sink swirl around the wrong way.

Elementary

[drhairston]

but with the TiBooks and Linux working on laptops, how much do people need Solaris laptops?

Solaris notebooks will satisfy their own market niche - users who need a stable, secure Unix with good development tools. Linux notebooks will be available for the rest of the Unix market.

Re:Elementary

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly it isn't flaimbait. I think somebody's bad browser "helped" them click the wrong selection.

And it was probably INTERNET EXPLORER!!!!!

That's flaimbait.

Re:Elementary

[Thud457]

I think the moderator read "users who need a stable, secure Unix with good development tools" + " Linux notebooks will be available for the rest" = flamebait. A totally acceptable interpertation of the post.

Re:Elementary

[los furtive]

Get back to work Dr. Bragsalot. If you ate your degree maybe you'd realize it's flamebait because it implies Linux is unstable, lacks development tools and is unsecure. I would have posted this piece of flamebait anonymously, but felt like rubbing it in the nose of someone who obviously posts as an anonymous coward to his own posts.

Re:Elementary

[Anonymous Coward]

i think you guys need to get a life and see humor at its face value.

Re:Elementary

[Anonymous Coward]

They posted a message that suggested Linux is anything other than a stable enterprise-ready operating system on Slashdot. That equates to Flamebait. As does this post.

Re:Elementary

[Anonymous Coward]

flamebait because it implies Linux is
unstable,
It is

lacks development tools
It doesn't

and is unsecure.
It is.

Re:Elementary

[BitwizeGHC]

[sarcasm]
Solaris is one of only two commercial operating systems to be Common Criteria EAL4 compliant (the other is Microsoft Windows 2000). That's gotta make it better than Linux somehow.
[/sarcasm]

Re:Elementary

[Blkdeath]

Get back to work Dr. Bragsalot. If you ate your degree maybe you'd realize it's flamebait because it implies Linux is unstable, lacks development tools and is unsecure.

I hate to contribute to this discussion, which is why I'm posting without my +1 bonus, but ...

Linux technically is unstable - it's in a constant state of development.

Linux technically is unsecure - although that could change once these new security patches are finished and thoroughly tested.

Re:Elementary

[Billly Gates]

Not to sound like a troll or anything but how many patches of solaris 8 came out? How many service packs for w2k? Now, tell me how many patches for the 2.4 kernel are out there? 10, 15, 20!

Go to any security related website and count the number of security holes for Linux and Windows as well as Solaris. WIndows is very bad while Linux is behind as a close second.

Its not fair to mod someone down because you do not agree with them but this is slashdot.

Re:Elementary

[Narchie Troll]

The Linux kernel with grsecurity patches is quite stable and secure. It's the shit vendors put on top of the kernel that sucks at times.

Re:Elementary

[aanantha]

Go to any security related website and count the number of security holes for Linux and Windows as well as Solaris. WIndows is very bad while Linux is behind as a close second.

Keep in mind that Solaris 8 comes with squat as far as software. Of course it's going to be more secure than Redhat Linux. The default install doesn't come with Apache, POP servers, and all sorts of other stuff. Redhat gives you the kitchen sink, and the typical user will just opt to install everything. A Solaris installation would be just as insecure if you installed the same software and didn't pay attention to it. And Solaris admins do install the same software that comes with Redhat. But they need to go out and download it from somewhere else, either binaries from sunfreeware.com or compile their own stuff. Those won't be counted as Solaris security holes.

If you compare the software that comes with a Solaris 8 installation with the equivalent software that comes in a Linux distribution, I seriously doubt you'd find Linux any less secure.

And simply comparing the number of kernel patches to Solaris patches is not fair. Linux is a rapidly evolving operating system. Solaris is stagnant. It hasn't fundamentally changed since the original Solaris 2. Linux supports more devices, more filesystems, more platforms. It's open source, so people find and fix security holes more quickly. How many security holes are in Solaris 8? How quickly do those holes get fixed? There are always plenty of security patches for Solaris.

Solaris is in some ways more dangerous, because it's such a pain to keep software up to date. Sunfreeware.com has only some of the packages you need and they're always out of date. Inevitably, people have to compile and install things themselves. That's a lot of work, and if you don't have a Solaris admin you may not be inclined to do it.

Re:Elementary

[aanantha]

Solaris notebooks will satisfy their own market niche - users who need a stable, secure Unix with good development tools.

What development tools? Solaris doesn't even come with a compiler. You're just going to end up using gcc, gnu make, and emacs/vi like the Linux users. And there's an easy way to make Linux secure. Stop installing all that crap that you don't need!

As far as stability, I've seen Ultra 10's crash a hell of a lot more than Linux PCs. Damn Ultra 10 kernel panicked today when I tried writing to a floppy disk. That's the second Ultra 10 that's happened on. And at my previous job, at least 5 percent of the Ultra 10's we received had that L2 cache defect:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/2/17417.html

For at least 2 years, Sun produced CPUs with that defect. They weren't able to identify the faulty chips in their labs. The time it would be take to crash was random, anywhere between hours to a week. Sun offered help to customers (i.e. replaced the chips) if they signed agreements to keep silent about the problem. That worked the first year.

Re:Elementary

[g4dget]

Good development tools? You've got to be kidding. The GNU project, gcc, gdb, command line tools, was a huge success on SunOS/Solaris early on, exactly because it filled the many gaps in Sun's operating system and development tools.

Re:Elementary

[christophersaul]

You're a little out of date. Solaris ships with the Sun Freeware CD, which has pretty much everything you need. You can also download all the packages from sun.com.

Re:Elementary

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems unlikely that's why your computers are crashing, since the defect only affected 400 and 450 MHz UltraSparc II CPUs.

The Ultra 10 never shipped at either of those speeds, and it used the UltraSparc IIi.

Re:Elementary

[aanantha]

Seems unlikely that's why your computers are crashing, since the defect only affected 400 and 450 MHz UltraSparc II CPUs.

The Ultra 10 never shipped at either of those speeds, and it used the UltraSparc IIi.

It affected the 440Mhz Ultra 10 also. The crash listed something about "Ecache". It's been over a year and it was a previous job so I don't remember the exact message. The only thing that worked was replacing the CPU. The floppy disk crash is a different issue I'm sure. It's probably an operating system bug rather than a hardware defect.

Re:Elementary

[aanantha]

You're a little out of date. Solaris ships with the Sun Freeware CD, which has pretty much everything you need. You can also download all the packages from sun.com.

I know about that. But my point is that defects in 3rd party applications/servers, even ones that one provides in the Freeware CD, aren't counted as defects in Solaris. They're not officially part of Solaris. So when people compare the security of Linux and Solaris, they're comparing a Redhat system with tons of packages (and tons of their security holes) against a system that just comes with a basic UNIX installation. That's not a fair comparison. To be fair, you need to compare the base Solaris installation against only the Linux kernel, C library, the GNU *utils stuff, X11, and the basic network servers. And you can find a Linux distribution that is as barebones as that if you want that security.

You're Right

[4of12]

Yes, at this point the advantages of a Solaris laptop are a pittance compared with what else is out there.

Most user applications that demand laptop portability are met with x86 hardware or a Mac running Powerpoint.

Even if Sun had had the benefit of Intel's economies of scale so that we'd be using UltraSPARC V's by now, they still would have difficulty selling the laptop to any market except perhaps Solaris field engineers.

64 bit addressing and Solaris 9 is a great boon for folks running databases on big iron, but I just can't see what it buys you on a laptop.

Re:You're Right

[NanoGator]

"64 bit addressing and Solaris 9 is a great boon for folks running databases on big iron, but I just can't see what it buys you on a laptop."

Sounds like it'd be helpful for 3D rendering apps. In that case, I could see Hollywood buying a few of these.

Re:You're Right

[BrookHarty]

4GB of memory, might be that its big iron in a travel size.

Re:You're Right

[Twirlip of the Mists]

It's not. Even at film resolution, 3D rendering doesn't require 2 GB of RAM. It works just fine with 32-bit addressing. The killer solution for 3D rendering is massive coarse parallelization; each machine in a big farm-- not a cluster, just a farm-- gets a frame to crunch on. Since each frame is unrelated to the one before or after it, each machine in the farm can work independently of the others. So in the time it takes to render one frame, you can render N, where N is the number of identical machines you have in your farm.

Re:You're Right

[NanoGator]

"It's not. Even at film resolution, 3D rendering doesn't require 2 GB of RAM"

I would disagree with that. I'm maxing out my gig of RAM right now. It's not because I'm being inefficient, it's because I'm making good use of it to speed up workflow. The more I have, the more stuff I can do.

In any case, you're right about the 32-bit crunching. I'm not sure if the 3D apps out there are tuned for 64-bit or not. I know that LW used to run on Alpha.

*Shrug* Just thought I'd mention it. If it's not popular today, it could be.

Re:You're Right

[Twirlip of the Mists]

I would disagree with that. I'm maxing out my gig of RAM right now. It's not because I'm being inefficient, it's because I'm making good use of it to speed up workflow. The more I have, the more stuff I can do.

You need to understand the difference between total memory and per-process virtual memory. If your computer has two gigs of RAM in it, and you launch four programs that allocate 512 MB each, you've exhausted all of your physical memory. But each of those programs could allocate another 512 MB of memory if it needed it; your computer would just start swapping. That's total physical memory.

What we're talking about is the maximum amount of RAM available to a single process. It's very, very, very unusual for a single process to need to allocate more than 2 GB of RAM for itself. I guarantee that none of the programs on your computer need anywhere even close to that amount of RAM. If you open them all at once, you can use more than 2 GB of physical memory in your computer, but not because any one process needed more than 2 GB of virtual memory.

The 32-bit/64-bit question only applies when you're talking about the amount of virtual memory available to a single process. It has nothing to do with how much memory you can put in your computer, or how many programs you can run at one time.

Re:You're Right

[mixmasta]

Not true, at my last job we often had hair renders taking 2GB of physical ram per process.

We also had a particle render doing cyclone type simulations that took 8 or 10GB at a time.

These were on 64bit Origins with 16-24GB of RAM if you are interested, which isn't much now, but was unbelievable in '98.

I could use a Solaris laptop

[Adam Rightmann]

Since I support some high end Solaris system, it would be nice to have something I can take to a clients site and show them exactly what we have, rather than some poor mimic running on GnuLinux/Gnome.

Additionally, when we set up our system for expos and conventions, it would be nice if we could do it with Solaris laptops, instead of packaging up our Ultra 2000s. We could set up as soon as we got in from the airport with the Solaris laptops in our carryon baggage, instead of waiting for the unionized setup people to finish their coffee, their Fantasy Football talk and their gutter sex talk before they deign to move three boxes for us, and then get back to their lazy ways. It's little wonder that the more unionized a country is, the less productive is, you could make a chart starting with Taiwan and ending with the relic of the Soviet Union, and get an inverse relationship between union membership and productivity.

So, yes, Taco and Slashdot crew, not everyone is satisfied with an amateurish linux powered hand-me-down laptop, some of us want the full featered enterprise set of Solaris, and some of work for corporations that will pay for a manufacturered install Unix, just to get 24-7 6 sigma support.

Re:I could use a Solaris laptop

[op00to]

I thought it was pretty cool how he fit in the anti-union rhetoric in a news story about a sparc laptop. Offtopic, anyone? Cmon, get a brain moderators.

Re:I could use a Solaris laptop

[EvlOvrLrd]

As a person who supports midrange to high end Solaris platforms and applications; I would find it benificial to have a mobile platform solution at hand.

Thus enabling folks like myself to be able to display, troubleshoot and (if necessary) develop on the same platform as I am supporting at a client site. Reducing the overall need to make that call back to the service centre or development team working on the particular piece that I am on the client site to support.

As the old saw goes: There is a solution for every technical question. Linux isn't always right and MS isn't always wrong. In this instance, I am very happy to see a Sun/Solaris solution considering that, that is the platform that I dedicate a majority of my professional attention to.

Too bad they didn't post their pricing model with the products. I hate having to call or request information from such vendors. Dealing with a salesperson trying to make the sale is not how I wish to be spending my time. Just give me the info and the price and let me decide on my own!

Re:I could use a Solaris laptop

[Anonymous Coward]

Start saving your pennies now...Sparcbooks are *expensive*. I have a Sparcbook 3XP circa early 90s. MicroSPARC II processor at 85 mHz, 1.2 scsi laptop drive, tricked out with 128 meg RAM purchased on eBay for $110 after shipping (seen them go for twice that, so it was a steal). From what I can find out from old newsgroups, they ran in the $16,000+ range back when. Ditto on the second generation. I don't expect that this third or fourth generation will be any cheaper. I'll go find those numbers again and maybe post non A/C, but I know it was a hell of alot.

Re:I could use a Solaris laptop

[Anonymous Coward]

As an addendum to my earlier "sparcbooks are *expensive*", I've had it for a year and still haven't gotten an OS on the thing. Matter of sitting down for a few hours somewhere and doing it, but without a floppy or CD-rom, and a funky proprietary network port (got a cable to convert it to AUI which can be put through a tranceiver), it's not a trivial task. The new ones will obviously have peripherals, inputs, and an OS, but this whole thing is q uite an adventure.

Re:I could use a Solaris laptop

[SN74S181]

You should be able to netboot it and install NetBSD, if you've got a cable to plug ethernet into it.

Re:I could use a Solaris laptop

[DNS-and-BIND]

Obviously a man who has never had to deal with the Teamsters in a business setting.

Assignment: put yourself in a situation in which you have to deal with the Teamsters. I bet you hate it.

Re:I could use a Solaris laptop

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's going to watch out for you when your beloved 6 sigma determines your position can be eliminated by some hungry H1B worker?

Oh, come on

[BlueGecko]

but with the TiBooks and Linux working on laptops, how much do people need Solaris laptops?

I don't even need one and I can answer that question.

• An administrator of a fully SPARC-based network
• Someone in scientific or industrial applications who need more than the 1 GB RAM that the TiBook supplies; with these specs (4 GB RAM, 160 GB max harddisk) it could even work quite well as a demonstration or temporary replacement server
• Someone with legacy Solaris programs that they need to make transportable
• A person who develops for Solaris
• Someone who just plain prefers Solaris to Linux (believe it or not, they exist)

Just because you personally do not have a use for this device does not mean that no one has a use for it.

Re:Oh, come on

[bsharitt]

You forgot the most important one, it would just be cool to have a 64-bit notebok.

Re:Oh, come on

[Anonymous Coward]

You assume that said person will have Internet Conductivity. The whole use of a Laptop is to insure remote conductivity.

P.S. I would be damn scared of an X connection over dailup when I am in a hotel in god knows where.

Re:Oh, come on

[Anonymous Coward]

That's afraid of ssh and remote X windows. ...

this presumes internet connection, and a fast one at that. internet cafes expect people to be browsing the web, sending email, not tunneling X through ssh. it is dog-slow at all places i've tried.

And you thought that Apple hardware was expensive

what is it worth to run a vx command on your laptop and make sure it doesnt hose your laptop before you run those commands on the production system?

Re:Oh, come on

[DNS-and-BIND]

My, my...what a static, limited world you live in. If you can't imagine thousands of engineers lining up to submit purchase orders for this new laptop...heck, why don't we just replace all the servers in the world with Dell 1U units running XP? Heck, it works, doesn't it?

Re:Oh, come on

[A_Duck_Named_Ping]

Realistically, four out of your five points don't require a Solaris laptop.

I would guess more admins (and managers) would agree that it is more useful to keep your Solaris server in the datacenter and ssh into it from your mobile workstation running your preferred OS.

It's more likely a laptop will fail -- fragile hw, jostling, theft, ... batteries dying ;-) -- than expecting a well-maintained server on a UPS will be unavailable.

Not to mention the security issues if you configure this free-floating device to be a hot spare.

Re:Oh, come on

[SN74S181]

Someone who just plain prefers Solaris to Linux (believe it or not, they exist)

What a fantastic marketplace! There could be ... dozens of folks like that!

The real surpising thing is, they'll actually pay money for their software! So if you add in the 'multiplier factor' (amount of money willing to pay times number of users) you arrive at a number infinitely greater than the number of Linux users.

Re:Oh, come on

[RevAaron]

That's afraid of ssh and remote X windows. ...

Humor us all, and think just for a minute, and fill in the blank: a laptop's purpose is largely to be ______ (circle your answer: portable, stationary). If you guessed portable, you're right! And when you're in a place where you've taken your portable laptop, you oftentimes don't have access to the network. So. It is time like those when you can't just ssh -X in to run an app running on a Sun server somewhere.

Re:Oh, come on

[kwerle]

My, my...what a static, limited world you live in.

I blame my parents.

If you can't imagine thousands of engineers lining up to submit purchase orders for this new laptop...

Thousands... Nope. A few, yes.

heck, why don't we just replace all the servers in the world with Dell 1U units running XP? Heck, it works, doesn't it?

'Cause it doesn't do what I want. Dell 1U's running FreeBSD, on the other hand, would do me fine. I'd even go with linux if I needed to. But I think I'll buy OSX for my next server box because it's so easy to use and maintain (I've got freebsd now, and the last openssl patch was a royal pain).

Which brings me to my point: I suspect these laptops will be REALLY EXPENSIVE. Solaris is notorious for being an unfriendly OS for users. I'm thinking that most engineers will:
. Buy a big server/desktop and remote display when they need to crunch numbers with a GUI, as is done around here most of the time.
. Go with a friendlier OS for their notebook.

What's more, I don't think there are a whole lot of applications out there right now that I'd want to run on a 650Mhz notebook that need 4G RAM. Are there folks who need to run big DBs on their notebook? Yeah, a few. Thousands? Naw.

Finally, I note that Dell will sell me a notebook with 1G RAM and a 2.2GHz CPU for about $5200. I wonder if a similar config from SUN (with the same RAM and CPU at 1/3 speed) will cost less than 3x.

Re:Oh, come on

[DNS-and-BIND]

You're thinking, huh?

I can't help but ask...how many Real Engineers have you actually been in contact with in your entire life? The market for this laptop is out there, have no worries. Your parochial, limited view of the world prevents you from seeing this.

Re:Oh, come on

[kwerle]

And when you're in a place where you've taken your portable laptop, you oftentimes don't have access to the network.

Actually, I almost always do have access to the network. Maybe I'm just spoiled.

Re:Oh, come on

[kwerle]

I can't help but ask...how many Real Engineers have you actually been in contact with in your entire life?

Not counting "Software Engineers", right? Can I count my father, who is an EE? That's 1.

And as I walk down the hall, I gotta think there are about 20 in our group here. And back when I worked with ME's, there were another... 15 to 20.

So, my grand total for engineers I've worked with, PLUS my dad is around 36-41. Not a big number - but some... And if we count "Software Engineers" that I have worked with since school, the number probably about doubles, but I don't think that's what you really mean.

While we're being conversational, here, how many have you worked with? Are you one? Are you in line to buy this laptop? Know anyone who is?

Re:Oh, come on

[Anonymous Coward]

Asking why is the wrong thing to do... Just ask why not?

You know what I hate about these sparc book... Is that I am way to poor to own one...

SPARC just have a superior design and this should be a good reason enought!

Re:Oh, come on

[RevAaron]

I think you must be spoiled.

In the places I've worked and schooled, I've had net access in a lot of places, but never all. This will diminish as wireless gets to be more pervasive, 802.11b in offices, &c. There are a lot of places (outdoors!) that there is little net coverage ATM.

Re:Oh, come on

[obdulio]

Also, If one of my big production servers needs to be shutdown for maintenance, I can just plug my notebook into the network, copy the files and continue working....

For tech support people this is great, just being able to move around a Solaris box.

Re:Oh, come on

[DoXaVG]

I'd buy one if I had either the money or my work would actually pay for it. We use Solaris quite heavily and I do a fair amount of development work. Some of which I enjoy enough to take home with me and work on at home. For that I have to VPN in and work on the code at work through SSH because I'm not about to take up the space of yet ANOTHER desktop at home. For me, it'd be extremely convenient to pull down the code via CVS to my nice SPARC laptop, take it home and work on it from anywhere in my house.

Is this right for everyone, no. Is it right for people that god forbid prefer Solaris over Linux? Yes. Is it right for someone that does work or support from home (and god knows that EVERY tech person is on call 24/7), yes.

Just my two cents.

Re:Oh, come on

[DoXaVG]

Someone who just plain prefers Solaris to Linux (believe it or not, they exist)

What a fantastic marketplace! There could be ... dozens of folks like that! No, really - I'm CERTAIN there are at least 30!

Is it so hard to believe that some administrators of Solaris networks don't want to learn Linux? It's NOT the same OS, why get confused with the differences if you don't have to? I'm no Sun bigot, I'm not terribly fond of the OS myself, but having to use three different unix flavors (and three different Solaris releases) each day, I can attest to the pain in the ass it is to have to context switch command syntax for every OS.

It's also quite conceivable that for the same reason you don't want to run Windows on your laptop and prefer to run Linux, they'd prefer to run Solaris on their laptop.

Re:Oh, come on

[kwerle]

For me, it'd be extremely convenient to pull down the code via CVS to my nice SPARC laptop, take it home and work on it from anywhere in my house.

I totally agree. Get a Mac! I vpn in to work and do any amount of remote unix work on it. The built in airport cards are great, though I bought a linksys 802.11 instead of the airport - that's before they dropped the price. Since it's Solaris, the X11 remote displaying is a no-brainer.

Is this right for everyone, no. Is it right for people that god forbid prefer Solaris over Linux? Yes. Is it right for someone that does work or support from home (and god knows that EVERY tech person is on call 24/7), yes.

See, I don't agree. It's too damn expensive (I'm guessing). If you want to work at home, get 802.11 and something cheaper to set in your lap. I really think the most compelling arguement is for the sales dude who needs to tote the big DB and app to demo. For remote work... hell, that's why X11 apps remote so easily, right?

Re:Oh, come on

[kwerle]

Help me out, cause I can't keep track - don't they still sell Solaris for X86? And wouldn't that be a much less expensive proposition?

Re:Oh, come on

[BlueGecko]

Help me out, cause I can't keep track - don't they still sell Solaris for X86? And wouldn't that be a much less expensive proposition?

They do, but Solaris SPARC software does not run on Solaris x86 without a recompile, and if the point is to run as close to the network as possible, you may not want to run the x86 version anyway. (The x86 version also had severe laptop the issues last I heard. Sun may have rectified them.)

Re:Oh, come on

[DoXaVG]

Further, there is no x86 version of Solaris 9. Sun has dropped support for Solaris x86 after purchasing Cobalt Linux.

Re:Oh, come on

[DoXaVG]

Actually, I prefer my x86 laptop running OpenBSD personally. But my point has nothing to do with remoting X11 apps. I don't have the bandwidth on my puny 144k dsl to do any decent X11 forwarding (using SSH compression or not - which is kinda pointless anyway considering the VPN is compressed already). Further, this doesn't help me work when I'm not network attached (ie. I'm on a train, plane, at a bookstore - incidently I tend to do some of my best work in the coffee shop at Borders *sigh*).

Let's agree to disagree. I see good uses for this laptop, I see good reasons to spend the $$$ on it (although I'm not likely to myself). And I also agree that this isn't for everyone. To each his own, we'll all use what works best for us, this just gives us another option.

3d graphics & Cad

[Brigadier]

I'm not sure what the graphics support is on this. Many main stream 3d graphic programs Maya, Houdini, lighwave all prefer UNIX, or to be more specific Solaris, & IRIX OS's. Though the graphic capability may not be there it's a nice way to continue working while on a business trip. This also applies to high end CAD applications. This way it is possible to use the same apps and utilities that are used at design stations. Thus making it easy to return from some seminar and just plug in and not worry about interface probs. I like. plus the backing of SUN is always nice.

Re:3d graphics & Cad

[TougaSempai]

actually you're probably right about CAD, but for 3D animation, Maya doesn't run on Solaris - just Irix, Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows NT/2000/XP and Lightwave is only available for MacOS and Windows. Softimage, incidentally, is also available for only Windows, Linux, and Irix, which means you'll be stuck using Houdini. Too bad Houdini's so hard to use.

Demo systems

[Telastyn]

These sort of things are great to use as portable demo systems for software that runs on solaris. I've seen some older x86 laptops running solaris for this purpose (don't ask me, I didn't install them)

did you notice this

[b17bmbr]

they create a fictitious business to show you how to save money and you can download the specs in get this: an excel spreadsheet. WTF?!?!

see here:

did i miss something, or does office now run on unix? (no os x trolling here please)

Re:did you notice this

[Anonymous Coward]

OpenOffice, StarOffice, and Gnumeric will read the file perfectly well. All run under Solaris.

In fact, Sun is the company that owns StarOffice.

Re:did you notice this

[perky]

When did you last meet a CFO who ran a Sparc workstation? It's simple: the people who make the decisions use Windows and MS Office.

Re:did you notice this

[13Echo]

"It's simple: the people who make the decisions use Windows and MS Office."

Except at Sun.

Re:did you notice this

[bmajik]

have you visited sun ? (or do you work there ?)

otherwise, i wouldn't be so sure theres no reliance on MS software at Sun :)

Re:did you notice this

[new500]

. . .

When did you last meet a CFO who ran a Sparc workstation?

Try a CFO or other management financial officer at a trading house, broker - dealer, investment bank . . . . . plenty of trading floors are peppered with, if not standardised on apps which run on and are customised for, or developed in house for Solaris. Can't be f&*&^d to go dig out a list right now of deidcated apps like order flow processing, risk management progs . . . but how about this one for a start : Mathematica plus their financials add - ins plus really dang big set of market data, say your position close end of day. Now that's what a CFO might want to muse over on a laptop every now and then. OK, what I suggested won't be much good for those who run 24/7 books, and I'm only picking on one market sector (but you didn't specify) but i hope you get my drift.

It's simple: the people who make the decisions use Windows and MS Office. - Yes I often feel that's about all the decision - making tools some banks have been using in recent years :-) but your statement is clearly untrue in such a generality.

Nope, I've not met a CFO who did run a SPARC laptop. Maybe that's because Tadpole have been a lame duck of a useless company doing nothing and developing no new products for years. They seemed to focus more on selling whimsical stories to the London Stock Exchange. This new announcement is undoubtedly only happening because the SPARCBook team recently did an MBO (not really an MBO because so much of their financing came from the parent) to try to get free of the rest of the increasingly farcical company.

. . .
== Idle Random Thoughts - Usual Disclaimers Apply==

Re:did you notice this

[Darren.Moffat]

Just because a document is published in Excel format it doesn't mean that it was generated by Microsoft Excel. StarOffice can export as well a import Microsoft formats.

I do work at Sun. We have a program called Sun-on-Sun which means we run the buisness on Sun hardware and where possible Sun Software.

StarOffice is used when spreadsheets are used. In general all our Microsoft Office like needs are met by StarOffice today and in the past (prior to Sun aquiring Star Division) Applix was used. There is still some use of Framemaker for very large and complex documents.

Re:did you notice this

[Anonymous Coward]

Office does not exist on Unix. Office v.X is a carbon app, which is a MacOS 9-ish API. Carbon is a lovely thing for a quick port, but I must say that I'd be a happier person with a 100% Cocoa-based app set..

Not gonna happen tho, a large number of Apple's products are still Carbon (iTunes for one).

Re:did you notice this

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure for office, but i got Internet Explorer and Outlook on my Sparc box... Microsoft don't hate UNIX, they only hate Open Source...

Re:did you notice this

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not trolling. Mac OS X is Unix and it runs MS Office.

Re:did you notice this

[perky]

Try a CFO or other management financial officer at a trading house, broker - dealer, investment bank . . . . . plenty of trading floors are peppered with, if not standardised on apps which run on and are customised for, or developed in house for Solaris.

Believe me, banks do not have Unix workstations on trading floors. The Database servers are Unix, and much of the back-end systems are Unix, but the screens in front of a trader are windows. Likewise the managers will have very good P&L breakdowns and exposure analytics, but they are just a report generated by some query. You don't need a SPARC to read a report. This is true in the least for Paribas, UBS, Deutche and JPMorgan.

As to the second point, I think you misunderstand what I was getting at. The original poster was asking why their marketing bumph was in MS proprietary formats. I answered that the poeple who look at marketing bumph will have a Windows machine on which to look at it. I wasn't talking about generic decision makers in a bank.

How many souls do I have to sell to get this ?

[Graspee_Leemoor]

Cool- I want one. But how much are they ? Something tells me that they'll be about 4 million of some currency.

Hmm- actually that's my guess - 4 million yen- which is about 20,000 UK Pounds.

It's certainly not going to look attractive compared to a Vaio running FreeBSD.

graspee

Re:How many souls do I have to sell to get this ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I was looking these up last week and stumbled across a page saying that they were in the neighborhood of $35,000-$50,000 depending on config. For that price I'd buy a real 64-bit computing system albeit non-laptop, in a compaq/HP ES40 or ES45 with 4x1Ghz Alpha's. Hey Digital/Compaq/HP have had real 64 bit systems for a wee over 10 years now.
Sun is the Microsoft of the UNIX world. Just don't tell that to a sun/solaris admin.....

what?

[Anonymous Coward]

"but with the TiBooks and Linux working on laptops, how much do people need Solaris laptops?"

Hemos, you have obviously never run Solaris. Linux and OSX are not even in the same league. Do yourself a favor and try a truly elegant operating system sometime.

Conflicting information.

[dananderson]

Look at the yellow image at the top: "Available in Winter 2002 4GB of memory, Solaris 9"

At the bottom, it says 2GB of DRAM, Solaris 8.

The Specification page says 2GB ECC SDRAM, Solaris 8.

The PDF Datasheet says "2GB ECC SDRAM, 4 slots PC 133 SODIMMs (unbuffered, ECC)" and "Solaris 8"

My guess is it's a last minute update.

Re:Conflicting information.

[Karamchand]

Thank you all three! :)

That is nothing

[MosesJones]

Now for something with real bizarre appeal you need to go for...S/390 on a laptop. Yes folks thats right, the great big clunking mainframe in the backroom running on your own Thinkpad.

Solaris is for wimps, I wouldn't go anywhere without my portable mainframe system.

Re:That is nothing

[bpfinn]

Hmm... How about Mobile Multics? You could be the envy of historically minded geeks everywhere.

Re:That is nothing

[Part`A]

While that comment was moderated as funny, following the link seems to take you to a real ibm page that gives you real information about how to emulate a mainframe on your thinkpad. Insane...

Re:That is nothing

[lostchicken]

Anybody can do this with Hercules/390 on Linux (as long as you just happen to have a copy of OS/390 or VM/ESA). Easy and free.
Makes for quite a demo.

Re:That is nothing

[macemoneta]

Unlike Flex-ES, Hercules/390 can't run VM/ESA (it can run VM/370, however). VM/ESA (or z/VM as it's currently called) requires a super-instruction used to run a virtual machine, SIE (Start Interpreted Execution) which is not implemented in Hercules/390.

Re:That is nothing

[CoolVibe]

They cheat. Look:

(From the page:) It is based on an IBM ThinkPad running Linux, and the S/390 emulation product FLEX-ES. FLEX-ES is a product of Fundamental Software, Incorporated (FSI) of Fremont, California. This package (the ThinkPad, Linux, and FLEX-ES) can run all current S/390 operating systems.

They use linux to emulate a S/390. So, not only stinkpads can do it :)

Re:That is nothing

[Servo]

Dude, your gettin a big iron!

Re:That is nothing

[lostchicken]

I thought VM/370 was in the class of operating systems called VM/ESA. Hmm. guess you learn something new every day. Slashdot is informative (at least that's what I say to justify the time spent on it...).

Duh, yes it's necessary.

[Art Popp]

If you're developing software with six layers of abstraction between you and the box, buy all means by a PowerBook (they're ever cute), and develop it there. I'm sitting here next to an HP workstation for which I had to write 5000 lines of C for a particularly stressed application. Writing it using my (more powerful) Linux box and porting it over would have been a huge mistake.

In using a close match for the target platform I discovered a bug in their libraries that I would not have otherwise caught, and was familiar enough with the debugging utilities of the box to use them remotely on the servers on which this app. lived. Since I had written the app. at exactly the same OS level as the target system, I new it wasn't a porting bug and that it wasn't a version bug. This saved me time far more valuble than the cost of my HP workstation. People who look down their noses at this laptop either code at very high levels or don't code at all.

Re:Duh, yes it's necessary.

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is how many people code for solaris? Not many especially once you eliminate the government sector. Besides that porting from linux to Solaris is not hard. 5000 lines is also not a lot. The program I wrote for my masters was 65000 lines and it was all C written on a Presario laptop running Slackware 7. It takes 43 minutes to compile on this laptop with 64mb of ram so I dont think compile time is much of an issue anymore for anyone. Solaris is a os on the verge of death. Sun is a company with one foot in the grave and their is no real debate about this. Dont get me wrong Solaris is rock stable and has its uses, but its doomed. Linux servers are cheap and fast. Wintel boxes make good workstations and Mac are used for professional graphics. Solaris does what? Its to expensive to compete in the server market. Macs are cheaper for graphics and coders work mostly on Windows machines because users own windows machines. Solaris is used a lot in the research world. But Sun cant stay alive selling only to cash strapped Universities and the Government sector. Especially in a world where linux is getting better every day. I have a Sun Blade 100 which I use only for development (Im a professor at Pace University) its a 999$ machine and I would never consider spending more on Sun hardware because if Im doing graphics I use a Mac (or Irix) if I need a server I'll buy a cheap intel machine and run slackware or freebsd on it. Most of my coding is done in Visual Studio or kdevelop. I use the Sun mostly for very efficient Fortran for mathematical modeling or statistical analysis, but nothing else. And its not my fault. Solaris plays a minor and ever diminishing role in the real world and so there is less and less reason to use it. Much less spend 20k on a Solaris box when you can get 6 dual processor Athlon boxes for the same price. The Athlons might not have the brute force power of a Sun box, but they are not 6x slower or 6x less reliable. Sun hardware does not warrant the price attached to it.

Re:Duh, yes it's necessary.

[binaryDigit]

It takes 43 minutes to compile

43 minutes to compile a 50000 line program, OUCH. Compile time isn't much of an issue. I guess it's not if you're not making a lot of changes or having to go through debug sessions where you have to tweak things to help figure out what's going on.

As to the rest of your comments, it's the same thing people have been saying for the last 10 years, pc's more cost effective than brand x unix, yadda, brand x is going away, yadda, yadda. The most amusing thing is this comment:

I would never consider spending more on Sun hardware because if Im doing graphics I use a Mac (or Irix)

Irix!?! SGI!?! Lord knows, their stuff is never overpriced and their price performance ratio is on par with WinTel/Apple. Oh wait, maybe not. What's that, SGI/Irix has certain features that warrant the higher price for your needs, hey, just maybe Sun/Solaris does the exact same thing in the server market.

Re:Duh, yes it's necessary.

[ipjohnson]

sorry buck o you need to get out of the academic world and into the real one.

The project I work on takes 2 hours to do a world build on a 600 Mhz alpha so when you make a change to something that affect everything its a pain in the ass.

Secondly I would not think of running mission critical software on linux (I write ATC software) .... sorry but truthfully would you want to fly on linux I wouldn't.

Re:Duh, yes it's necessary.

[aftk2]

Sun is a company with one foot in the grave and their is no real debate about this. Dont get me wrong Solaris is rock stable and has its uses, but its doomed.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to realize this. Red ink flows like a river of blood...

Re:Duh, yes it's necessary.

[rnd()]

Much less spend 20k on a Solaris box when you can get 6 dual processor Athlon boxes for the same price.

Try 20 or more Dual Athlon boxes for the same price!!!

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[account_deleted]

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Solaris laptops?

[wandernotlost]

...but with the TiBooks and Linux working on laptops, how much do people need Solaris laptops?

Believe it or not, there are still people that haven't ported their software to linux. They need Solaris laptops (or worse yet, they lug around a workstation) to show off their wares to potential customers.

Personally, I think it's silly. Porting to linux is a great idea for a number of reasons, the ability to run on a plethora of cheap laptops not being the least.

Re:Solaris laptops?

[obdulio]

I'm an independent Solaris consultant. In a month I get to visit several different customers. It would be great for me to have a portable Sparc box.

If I need to shutdown a server, I just can plug my notebook on the network. That's great....

Cool, I could use one of these

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I don't need to haul my Sparc 5, Monitor, Keyboard,
and RAID setup everywhere I go. I could just get the
laptop and I can run Solaris anytime I want. (x86 sucks)

Oh yeah, Solaris Rules!

Define 64-bit

[yerricde]

Where else can you get a 64-bit laptop?

How is my existing Pentium II laptop not 64-bit? Define "64-bit" for a personal computer.

"64-bit data bus" and "64-bit floating-point registers": Intel Pentium 1 has these.

"64-bit memory addresses": This begins to beat 32-bit addresses only on servers or workstations with more than 2 GB of physical RAM.

"64-bit integer data path": The Pentium has dual 32-bit integer data paths (U and V pipes). The Pentium II/III and Athlon have three. And don't MMX, 3DNow!, and SSE work with 64-bit vectors?

Re:Define 64-bit

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course there is a HUGE difference - you can run the same 64-bit program that is using 64-bit pointers on a huge server! For a developer it is a HUGE difference!

Re:Define 64-bit

[Anonymous Coward]

"64-bit memory addresses": This begins to beat 32-bit addresses only on servers or workstations with more than 2 GB of physical RAM.

I guess you missed the part of the Slashdot story that says "4 gigs of RAM".

The ad that it points to says both 2 GB and 4 GB, so there is some confusion there. But in any case, it won't be long before 4 GB of ram is common in high-end laptops.

Re:Define 64-bit

[Anonymous Coward]

64bit defined from the mouths of Digital engineers

I'm sorry to inform you that your precious Pentium is not 64 bit, no matter how many 32 bit ops it can do in parallel. While your p2 might be able to do 2 or 4 32bit ops, my sparc can do 4 or more 64bit ops, if everything works well. Troll.

Re:Define 64-bit

[Anonymous Coward]

Err, the top of the range model comes (or will come) with 4 GB RAM so there goes your argument on 32-bit address size for a start. Its not just 32-bit servers and workstations that get into problems with more than 2GB RAM, its 32-bit laptops too!

I can imagine this is extremely useful for a limited number of people (ie, people who want to run their serious numerical/database apps successfully on a laptop), next to useless for a large number of people (who don't get past powerpoint on their laptop).

If there were Alpha laptops available, I would definitely buy one (as long as it wasn't hideously expensive), as that is the architecture that I prefer, and it would let me run the same binaries that I usually run on http://nf.apac.edu.au on my laptop!

Re:Define 64-bit

[npietraniec]

Define "64-bit" for a personal computer.

Are you simple? It's one thing to say "What do I need this for." It's another thing to try and claim that your 32 bit computer is 64 bit.

Re:Define 64-bit

[MShook]

Don't forget that almost all recent ia32 cpus support 36-bits addresses (well that's an ugly hack ala msdos but it allows you to use up to 64GB of RAM instead of 4)

Re:Define 64-bit

[kbielefe]

Now that you mention it I think my trs-80 laptop is 64-bit because it can add two 64-bit numbers.

Re:Define 64-bit

[lostchicken]

So, by that logic, is my quad-pentium machine a 128-bit box?

Re:Define 64-bit

[Alien Being]

main(){
printf("My computer is %d bits\n", sizeof( int) * 8);
}

Re:Define 64-bit

[clarkc3]

How is my existing Pentium II laptop not 64-bit? Define "64-bit" for a personal computer.

ability to handle as 64bit word length as a 64bit word length. Sparcs and Alphas can do that just fine, PC's still break it apart. Even though it does multiple 32 bit, they are all still done as as mutiple 32 bit. Multiple data paths are likely to exist in the sparc chips too, does that make them 128?

Re:Define 64-bit

[Fluffy the Cat]

64 bit memory addresses are not just an issue when it comes to physical memory - that's the size of your virtual address space, too. Linux on a 32 bit system won't allow a process to consume more than 3GB of VM, no matter how much physical memory you have.

Re:Define 64-bit

[elphkotm]

Only the Intel Xeon branded processors support 36-bit addressing.

Re:Define 64-bit

[audrey]

eh. You guys clearly have never had a 64-bit box. An int is 32-bits on most 64-bit archs.

main(){
printf("My computer is %d bits\n", sizeof(void*) * 8);
}

Re:Define 64-bit

[Anonymous Coward]

You've clearly never coded in C. sizeof(void*) returns the size of a void pointer. A pointer on a 64 bit machine is most definately 64 bits.

Re:Define 64-bit

[Anonymous Coward]

Duh, that's why he changed the "int" to "void *"

Re:Define 64-bit

[be-fan]

Even with the 36-bit extension, all current IA-32 processors are still 32-bit, because the 36-bit address space is physical, not virtual. The virtual address space is still 32-bits, and all pointers are still 32-bits, as well as all GPRs.

Re:Define 64-bit

[CoolVibe]

coolvibe@azazel devel $ ./tellme
My computer is 8 bits

Wow, I didn't know my Pentium II box was 8 bit! Oh whoops, I did sizeof(void) instead of sizeof(void *). Still, I was quite surprised for a while ;)

Re:Define 64-bit

[fitten]

No... 384 bit!!111! (4 cpus x 3 x 32-bit paths)

Re:Define 64-bit

[Alien Being]

I stand corrected.

Re:Define 64-bit

[blueskies]

Not just that but if you have 4GB of physical memory and you start three processes that take up 2GB of memory each, the VM will start killing other processes to allocate memory for the second and third instance of your 2GB processes. (Actually it might be when you run out of swap+phys memory...i forget.)

Re:Define 64-bit

[MShook]

Wrong the Pentium Pro was the first one to implement it...

From Intel:
3.3.3. Extended Physical Addressing Beginning with the P6 family processors, the IA-32 architecture supports addressing of up to 64 GBytes (236 bytes) of physical memory. A program or task cannot address locations in this address space directly. Instead it addresses individual linear address spaces of up to 4 GBytes that are mapped to the larger 64-GByte physical address space through the processor s virtual memory management mechanism. A program can switch between linear address spaces within this 64-GByte physical address space by changing segment selectors in the segment registers. The use of extended physical addressing requires the processor to operate in protected mode and the operating system to provide a virtual memory management system. (See 36-Bit Physical Addressing Using the PAE Paging Mechanism in Chapter 3 of the IA-32 Intel Architecture Software Developer s Manual, Volume 3 for more information about this addressing mechanism.)

Re:Define 64-bit

[WWWWolf]

I compiled that with cc65, and run it on VICE; apparently Commodore 64 is a 16-bit machine after all! =) So the reason why it rules so much has finally been explained...

Or maybe there was something wrong with the code.

Re:Define 64-bit

[Alien Being]

"Or maybe there was something wrong with the code."

Yes there was. It was my mistaken belief that C ints were defined to be the natural size of the architecture. K&R said that ints "typically" reflect the natural size, but that it's implementation dependent.

Re:Define 64-bit

[WWWWolf]

main(){
printf("My computer is %d bits\n", sizeof(void*) * 8);
}

Nope, it's still broken - cc65 compiled that one, I ran it on C64 emulator again, and lo and behold, it still claims it's a 16-bit machine. The memory address space is 64k, means sizeof(void*) = width of address bus = 16 bits, but the processor itself is 8-bit. There's a distinct difference between processing stuff and storing it in the memory =)

lda #$10 ; jsr pusha0 mor'ass...

Re:Define 64-bit

[mindstrm]

That's when you run out of virtual memory.. not physical, and that's a last resort feature that you want to plan never to run into.

THe alternative is just to stop allocating memory and let everything crash.

Re:Define 64-bit

[James Lanfear]

Being pedantic and all, that should actually be

#include <limits.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int
main(void)
{
printf("My computer is %zd bits\n", sizeof(void*) * CHAR_BIT);
return 0;
}

since there's no guaranty that you're machine will have 8-bit bytes.

Re:Define 64-bit

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, but the only chipsets that support more than 4GB of RAM are designed for Xeons, not regular pentiums.

Re:Define 64-bit

[Paul Komarek]

You may not believe me when I say this, but I'm really glad you showed me that constant. I try not to be outwardly pedantic, because it puts people off (or maybe it's my bad breath). But I shudder when I have to hardcode something like 8 bits per byte.

-Paul Komarek

[Apologies to Monty Python for stealing their punch line]

Re:Define 64-bit

[Anonymous Coward]

Properly, this would be written as :

#include /* You must have a prototype in scope for a function with variable arguments such as printf */
#include
#include

int main( void )
{ /* sizeof returns type size_t, not int. A cast is appropriate, since variable arguments do not follow the standard promotion rules */

printf( "My computer is %u bits\n", (unsigned int) (sizeof( int ) * CHAR_BIT )); /* Note, you are not guaranteed to have 8 bits per byte. This is why CHAR_BIT is provided. */

return 0;
}

Re:Define 64-bit

[blueskies]

But won't it be better to kill the current process or deny it memory allocations rather than killing a running process?

Re:Define 64-bit

[mindstrm]

The current process IS the running process.

Remember, any running process could be trying to allocate memory, not just a new one you are trying ot use.

If you simply deny further memory allocations (which is what is normaly done on most operating systems) stuff stops working.. software is designed thining it can always get more memory if needed. Things get weird.. so this feature was added in an attempt to at least do something.

Killing off processes that aren't asking for new memory, rather than having things just slowly go insane would seem like a slightly better choice.

Of course, it's still horrible.. but generally, you don't run out of VM anyway, right? The main 'feature', if you will, of swap is that the more you use in relation to physical memory, and the more swapping you do, the slower things get due to time spent swapping... so if you pick your swapfile size right, you should notice a gradual degradation of speed as you eat up more and more memory. Even if you have enough physical ram, swap is a good idea for this reason. (otherwise, you smack into that out-of-memory error with no warning)

Fail-over, demonstration, ...

[BoomerSooner]

and the ability to run your applications without rebuilding.

Plus if your trying to sell something that runs on Solaris wouldn't it be good to demo it on solaris? For example, if the customer cannot come to you.

Also as far as server fail-over you could use one of these temporarily to host a webserver, db, hell anything you want. If the battery works like most laptops it would last at least 1 hour with a heavy load and 2+ with a moderate load. Try that with a UPS for around $8000 (SPARCs are damn expensive).

Re:Fail-over, demonstration, ...

[wrax]

Portable server in a box. A snowstorm knocked out your SUNFire at a remote site, you truck up there and find that the box is fried, just plug this in and copy the backup data to it and let it rip. very good for that type of application.

Re:Fail-over, demonstration, ...

[_Spirit]

I remember talking to some engineer from a db company (think it was Progress, not sure) a while back, he had an RS/6000 laptop on which he could create a temporary server while he repaired whatever went wrong on the original server. Don't know how they'd cope with the load (the client this was at had a pretty large RS/6000, don't think the laptop came anywhere near it performancewise). I think they had some plan to keep everybody but a few key employees out of the db in cases like this.

I guess these Sparcs can be used for the same thing. They sound a lot cheaper than those RS/6000 laptops though, i think the machine that guy showed me cost $30000+ at the time.

Re:Fail-over, demonstration, ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the "RS/6000 Laptop" was from the same people as the SparcBook, Tadpole.

The one I saw was a standard ThinkPad 76x chassis with a PowerPC CPU. Also ran NT.

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[account_deleted]

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Target audience

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically, anybody stuck with software that is only compiled for Solaris/SPARC. It's not going to be much of a replacement for a laptop; but it's useful for people like sales droids demoing their company's software, people using niche software that's only supported on Solaris etc.

If you just want a laptop, it's not interesting, go and buy an Apple, Sony, Toshiba or whatever. If you need a portable SPARC, it's going to be amazingly useful. Carrying around a Sun Fire 15k all day is rather tiring.

This laptop is great.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can run SuSE Linux on it. :)

a good reason.

[programic]

but with the TiBooks and Linux working on laptops, how much do people need Solaris laptops?

Because you need that kind of firepower to adequately run StarOffice(TM).

Re:a good reason.

[smnolde]

I bet it doesn't have a winmodem.

Solaris runs on Intel

[yerricde]

Or runs production solaris only applications.

The Solaris(tm) operating environment runs on Intel microprocessors as well.

Most programs that are available only for SPARC processors are probably heavy computation or database apps, not the sort of apps that you would want to run on a laptop computer.

Re:Solaris runs on Intel

[jedidiah]

Just because the OS runs there, it doesn't mean that the applications run there as well. MIPS and Alpha NT were great examples of this. So is Sparc versus x86 solaris.

Why Solaris?

[Derkec]

You may have Solaris apps or need to test against a sparc. That or you just can't find a TiBook with ->4gigs- of RAM.

Anti-Hemos/Linux R0XX0R$ post!

[swordgeek]

I honestly worry about the number of brain cells that Hemos and others like him are firing on, at times.

Every single time an article about Sun/Solaris comes out, someone (often the original poster) will say, "but Linux does xxx, so we don't need this!"

Everybody chant the following mantra: Solaris is not Linux. Linux is not Solaris. There is room for both.

Do we need this laptop? Well hell, do we need laptops at all? Is there some reason we NEED a Linux laptop over one running Win2k? Of course not!

That said, some things are easier under Linux that Windows. (and vice versa!) Some things are more mature under Solaris than Linux (or maybe all things?). Some people prefer Solaris, some prefer Linux, some prefer Windows, and some preferred OS/2. WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY do we have to say "but Linux..." EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME ANYTHING ABOUT ANY OTHER PLATFORM IS MENTIONED?????

OK, rant off. Just had to get that off my chest.

Re:Anti-Hemos/Linux R0XX0R$ post!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Linux does everything, so we don't need this!

Re:Anti-Hemos/Linux R0XX0R$ post!

[A_Duck_Named_Ping]

Linux was my first thought too, since I work in a Unix environment and my employers supply me with an Intel-based laptop.

HW is inexpensive, but also supports a number of OS choices, including Linux.

I suppose a more apt comparison to this new laptop would be with a Solaris-on-Intel laptop, but then we would be stuck arguing questions like, "Why is CDE still a viable window manager?"

Seriously, Linux a good all-around choice for those who do a little work on Unix. Otherwise, you are correct that a strict technical need for a Solaris laptop would exclude discussions of Linux... but then really that's the point of questioning this product. How many folks *need* Solaris? Some, but not most.

Re:Anti-Hemos/Linux R0XX0R$ post!

[swordgeek]

"Why is CDE still a viable window manager?"

I can think of two reasons:

1) It never was.
2) Because Gnome 2.0 hasn't hit final release yet. That's where Sun is going from CDE, and good riddance!

"Linux a good all-around choice for those who do a little work on Unix"

Oh, absolutely it is! No argument from me on that aspect--three of my machines at home run Linux! What I object to is the assumption (or occasionally flat out claim) that Linux is (a) a better solution always and forever; and (b) therefore the only one that should be talked about. It amounts to the same sort of egotistical empire-building and chest-beating attitude that Microsoft is always accused of.

Re:Anti-Hemos/Linux R0XX0R$ post!

[Questy]

So then why does Sun's CEO keep saying that Solaris *IS* Linux. Can somebody get this right for once?

--q

Re:Anti-Hemos/Linux R0XX0R$ post!

[swordgeek]

Huh? Where did McNealy say that?

Re:Anti-Hemos/Linux R0XX0R$ post!

[Questy]

http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0012 .1/1518.html

Note that the exact phraseology is "Solaris is our implementation of Linux" which is just absurd. The point was for humor's sake, anyhow.

--JMS

Fuck TiBooks

[Anonymous Coward]

If it won't run Slack, it sucks ass

horror, horror, look at the keyboard!

[meshko]

You can see it clearly in the datasheet here:
http://hw.tadpole.com/pdf/products/mobile/s parcboo k/datasheet.pdf
at zoom level of 800% or so.
What is that key between tab and shift? This has to be a mistake. Do they really expect any self-respecting Unix user will by this???

Prejudice aside, I think I want this toy even more than Zaurus. I wonder if FreeBSD 5.0 will work on it ;)

And yes, there are people who really do need it.

Re:horror, horror, look at the keyboard!

[JUSTONEMORELATTE]

What is that key between tab and shift? This has to be a mistake. Do they really expect any self-respecting Unix user will by this???
Umm, it's a caps-lock? Just as every Sun keyboard has had since the introduction of the Sparc?
Don't get me wrong, I liked the Sun3 keyboard just fine too (with a CONTROL there, as God intended!) but you're fighting a battle that was lost 12 years ago, man. Move on!
--

Re:horror, horror, look at the keyboard!

[tuanjim_2001]

Well I don't know about your universe but I think it is called a "Caps lock" in mine. I will agree that it is almost unnecessary but it is kinda convential.

Re:horror, horror, look at the keyboard!

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks to be *identical* to the Dell Inspiron 5000e that I'm typing this on. Some pics of the Dell. Funny how companies do that sort of thing...

Re:horror, horror, look at the keyboard!

[bmajik]

YOu are wrong.

There has been a UNIX layout and a PC layout keyboard in type4, type5, type5c, and presumably type6.

All my sparc keyboards are UNIX layout - the way god intended.

and my w2k / xp machines at work ? They run ctrl2cap - from sysinternals.com

The battle hasn't been lost. The weak have given up.

Re:horror, horror, look at the keyboard!

[Anonymous Coward]

What? The "CAPS LOCK" key? What planet have you been living on? Sun's type 5 keyboard has had the capslock in that location since what... 1993? Just remap it if you want ctrl there.

Re:horror, horror, look at the keyboard!

[Nerftoe]

What is that key between tab and shift?

Or how about the key between Fn and Alt? Yes, that's the infamous "diamond key". Look very closely, and you can see they "painted" over the Windows key.

Hah.

Re:horror, horror, look at the keyboard!

[meshko]

Just to get it straight: I was shooting for +3 Funny, not +3 Insightful here. I was born too late to prefer the correct control placement.
However I must disagree with you that the battle was lost 12 years ago. First of all I have encountered at least 2 Sparcs with the right keyboards. I am not positive that they were *shipped* with these keyboards though. However: check out this link: http://store.yahoo.com/pfuca-store/

Re:horror, horror, look at the keyboard!

[markov_chain]

A lost battle, perhaps-- but we haven't lost the war yet. Don't give up, fellow opposers of the most useless key!


machine:~> xmodmap -
remove Lock = Caps_Lock
remove Control = Control_L
keysym Control_L = Control_L
keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L
add Lock = Caps_Lock
add Control = Control_L
^D
machine:~>

Re:horror, horror, look at the keyboard!

[tjw]

Or you could buy a PS/2 keyboard with the CONTROL and
CAPS switched here:

http://store.yahoo.com/pckeyboards/linux101.html

Re:horror, horror, look at the keyboard!

[mindstrm]

What I miss was that old (but not the oldest) sun keyboard with the blank key. No label, nothing. It returned a keycode. but had no default function that I am aware of.

The mystery key.

Re:horror, horror, look at the keyboard!

[Anonymous Coward]

Prejudice aside, I think I want this toy even more than Zaurus. I wonder if FreeBSD 5.0 will work on it ;)

NetBSD certainly runs on some of the older Tadpoles, and on other USparc IIi boxes, so I wouldn't be surprised to see it on this laptop also.

Re:horror, horror, look at the keyboard!

[Anonymous Coward]

I was born too late, too, but I remap control to the key next between tab and shift on every computer I use. It really is faster and easier to use, and as an emacs user I keep pressing control all the time anyway.

Re:horror, horror, look at the keyboard!

[Caktus]

Or how about the key between Fn and Alt? Yes, that's the infamous "diamond key".

Do you mean the meta key?

Re:LOOT AT THIS!

[Squarewav]

solaris is a server OS and is likely going to serve files to windows users, the point is to stop viri before before some dumb ass in acounting double clicks on that happy.exe file that was in his email

Solaris x86 running on Toshiba laptop

[chadworthman]

I've got Solaris x86 running on Toshiba 4020CDT laptop and I use it like a server. I've got Apache, MySQL, and PHP running a copy of OpenDB for my group at work. I'm very impressed with the performance of a machine that was lumbering along with Windows 2000.

And with the battery, it's has a builtin UPS!

Sure, I could have used Linux. But I mostly use Solaris for work, so I chose to work with an operating system I'm more familiar with.

Re:Solaris x86 running on Toshiba laptop

[banky]

I have the same laptop, and couldn't get it to recognize my PCMCIA. What are you using?

Re:Solaris x86 running on Toshiba laptop

[chadworthman]

I followed the directions on the Solaris x86 Laptop List, specifically these instructions:

In BIOS: Disable printer and serial ports. Set PCIC mode for PCMCIA.

Also, I used the Chips 65550 video driver and specify an 15" XGA LCD and X works fine. I had to resort to an older 3com card (can't remember which one).

Re:Solaris x86 running on Toshiba laptop

[chadworthman]

I should add that I needed to download a patch from sunsolve to get the drivers for the 3com nic. Sorry, I can't remember which one.

Can you imagine...

[theMAGE]

a Beowolf cluster
*plonk*
Carrier Lost

Re:Can you imagine...

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't deserve that user number.

Some people have a really sad mind.

[yerricde]

with all of those horrible viri[sic] out there that attack unix....

The Solaris operating environment has its share of viruses and worms as well:

fuck USA Government
fuck PoizonBOx

nifty hardware, no doubt.

[Anonymous Coward]

My first reaction: OMG That's cool! I want one!

My second reaction, three seconds later: Wait a minute, no I don't. I don't even like Solaris; I'd probably just put Linux on it, which runs fine on my x86.

Amen, brother!

[jonr]

The Slashdot crowd are the Beavis & Butthead of the IT industry. Well, maybe not all of you. :)
J.

Re:Amen, brother!

[ArsonSmith]

huh, huh, huh, you have an account as well, huh, huh, huh, cool.

Re:Amen, brother!

[Moloch666]

Hah! When I put KDE on my FreeBSD machine, I went looking for some old mousepads. I found a Beavis and Butthead pad that I had completely forgotten about. It has a picture of a computer on a desk with with Beavis say "uh, why is there a typwriter connected to a TV?". And Beavis is stomping on the mouse.

Re:Amen, brother!

[HiredMan]

Uhhhhhh.... did you say "the TIT industry"?
Huh huh huh... That would be cool...
Yeah, that would rule, eh eh RULE! Yeah rule, yeah..
huh huh huh huh

=TKK

PS Wasn't sure how to take that until I saw your User #.
Rock on brother jonr! ;)

Interesting...

[airrage]

I'm not a huge SUN fan, from a business standpoint, but this actually has some merit. I can see some applications for admins, engineers, etc., though still a niche-market. They say that even a mouse will fight a lion if backed into a corner. So it's interesting to see the last death throes of Sun. I just don't think this strategy is the kind of thing that makes sense.

--RIP DMC, here's some 40 for me, and some for my homies.

Re:Interesting...

[swordgeek]

Hmm.

I was sitting here laughing about Sun's "Death Throes," and then thought about their stock price for a minute, and decided that the business world needs to be blown up in its entirety.

Sun is a healthy, prosperous company. They have a BIG market share in server rooms (especially in the geophysics/oil&gas world), they're producing excellent hardware, they've got a top-notch OS, and...

their stock price is floating around $3, making them ripe for a takeover by quite a few companies.

It's stupid. Their stock price, like that of many other companies, has no bearing on their health as a company anymore. There's simply no connection between stock price and performance, either good OR bad.

Bah. No real point. Just disgusted with big business.

Re:Interesting...

[bmajik]

while i agree that its a shame stock price doesn't necessarily affect quality of products...

i think its pretty clear that the entire tech sector was _Extremely_ over valued. SUNW lost a lot of ground not because of their bad products, but because of the bad investors that inflated the price so damn high.

Realistically, anyone that had any sort of experience with the markets would have started selling sun short about a year ago. And they'd be filthy rich right now. With double and triple digit P/E ratios, the entire tech sector is a joke.

Look at MSFT - no debt, $40b in cash, record revenues all through an economic downturn (and the tech sector crash). Still, the price has been floating around the same level for about 2 years. Granted, after 1:30PST today there may be a big change in MSFT, but even so, the financials at MS by all indications show that it is one of the strongest companies there is.

Yet its share price has stagnated.

Right now, so much price has dropped out of the tech sector, that all that remains is for the _value_ of those stocks to catch up. Then the stock prices will rise again, and do so at a normal rate (backed by people that know what the fuck they're doing, not idiot day-traders)

Incidentally, SUNW's product offerings are a mixed bag. They cant decide wether they're a hardware or a software company publicly (What is SunONE ? Has anyone seen it ? Why were they telling MSFT that Software didn't matter 1 year ago ?) Also, as nice as the ultrasparc III is, its only nice compared to other sparcs. x86 chips are doing quite a bit better, and itanium crushes it for FP work. SGI systems scale better than Suns, pretty much everyone makes a workstation that outperforms them at the bottom end. IBM's entire line of products is in roughly all ways superior to the equivalent (where they exist) offerings from Sun.

Sun's biggest asset right now is its installed base, and as we've seen, linux/x86 is eroding that because for many things, the port is almost free, and because the hardware is soooo much cheaper (absolute and price/perf)

Sun was the poster child of the .com era. And now they're paying for it.

Sun is not a healthy or a prosperous company. They're laying people off, forcing vacations, etc etc. This isn't because of their stock price. Its because people aren't buying as much sun gear, because it costs too damn much money, and because everyone that bought any in the last 2 years has auctioned it off as they went under, so the market is flooded.

Re:Interesting...

[airrage]

"Sun's biggest asset right now is its installed base, and as we've seen, linux/x86 is eroding that because for many things, the port is almost free, and because the hardware is soooo much cheaper (absolute and price/perf)"...couldn't be more accurate. I buy a generic PC with quality parts and slap Linux on it, it's a phenomenal choice cost-wise with little or no risk. Plus, I haven't bought into any one paradigm of how things should be ... the potential for companies is huge...that's why their stock price is bad. If you could get a car half of what you bought your current one for which was/is basically the same..what would you do?

Re:Interesting...

[dlb]

SunONE is their rebranding of iPlanet products -- the web server, directory server, messaging, their whole development environment, etc.

Any software released by Sun now is part of the SunONE brand.

~dlb

Re:Interesting...

[swordgeek]

That the tech sector was overvalued is a given. I mean, RedHat at $114??!!! It doesn't get much more ridiculous than that!

But I'd argue (or rather disagree mildly) with much of the rest of your post. The x86 chips just don't compare to the Sparcs. Itanium I don't know about, but I suspect that it is a better chip than the Sparc, for some things. (After all, it's a newer technology base) Less scalable than SGI? I would say that was true up until the introduction of the UltraSparc II. Even if it were still true, the Sparc scales very well up to 100+ processors, and I'm not convinced that parallel processing beyond about 50 processors is the way to go.

Linux/x86 is eroding the Solaris/Sparc market in _some_ fields. In others, it's not even a speck on the horizon. For instance, what do I want as a firewall: FW-1/Solaris, or IPTables/Linux? It depends on the situation, but IPtables/Linux is a great option where before there may not have been any alternative. In those cases, Sun loses.

BUT, if I'm looking for a high end workstation for geophysical modelling, my answer is a Blade2000 with Solaris, running Landmark software. No alternatives, no other consideration.

As for the appearance of not being a healthy company: Every publicly traded company is laying off people, forcing vacations, cutting costs, and cancelling training. Why? Because they're trying to show profitability in the current quarter, and get their stock price back up! When I say that they're healthy, I mean that they have good products for the market they're in, good technology, a good organisation, and good potential for long-term growth. Unfortunately, like effectively every other stupid company out there, they're chasing the damned stock market on a week-by-week basis, instead of working long term.

Oh, and if you think the market's flooded with Sun gear, try to buy a V880--there's currently a 3 month waiting list!

Re:Interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

Last throes???

First off, this isn't even a Sun product, it's a _tadpole_ product.

Secondly, why do you assume Sun is dying?

As long as there are Oracle shops who need their DB to be highly available, there will be a Sun Microsystems.

Re:Interesting...

[bmajik]

Read up on the SGI Origin 3800.

Can you say 512 cpus in a single system image ? Can you say clustering multiple 512cpu nodes ?

Sun isn't even close. Never has been. The E10k and E15k are basically iterative improvements over the old Cray CS6400. A 10 year old system.

And im not making this shit up. go look at speccpu and specfp scores. Modern athlon and p4s smoke any sparc chip in integer scores. And the itanium 733 smoked it in floating point.

Not all companies are laying people off. Microsoft, for instance, hasn't done any layoffs. Microsoft also isn't playing any short-term quarterly financials games. Fucking yourself for short term gains is what caused the .com fallout to begin with. Sun is killing their future by destroying investments in intellectual capital.

Re:Interesting...

[blueroo]

Sun isn't in their "death throes". You may not understand or have relevant experience in the high end server market, and that is ok. However, don't assume that Sun is dying based on your lack of personal relevance and observation there.

Indeed, if Sun were on a death march, it would still be irrelevant as Tadpole is a 3rd party manufacturer. Tadpole is not Sun Microsystems. Tadpole has been manufacturing Sparc based laptops for years now. This is not a strategy, or anything new for that matter. Tadpole is operating in the same manner that they have been for years. The SparcBooks occupy a well funded and important niche of engineers, systems administrators, government contracts, and likely other roles I am not familiar with.

Re:LOOT AT THIS!

[swordgeek]

Viruses. Not Virii, or even Viri.

No sense in applying Latin pluralisation to a word that doesn't have a latin plural, especially when an existing plural already exists and has been in use for decades.

The CmdrTypo that almost corrects itself

[distributed.karma]

"buy all means by a PowerBook"

*lol*

Re:The CmdrTypo that almost corrects itself

[Art Popp]

Yeah, I went to correct the one and changed the other. Sadder still is that I can actually spell. Someday I'll learn to work the mouse.

OMG did anyone look at the window system?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll give you a clue: its obsolete, crap, starts with a 'C', and also contains a 'D' and an 'E'.

Presumably its not too hard to put Gnome or even KDE on it though...

Non-Sun OEM use SPARCcs?

[bsharitt]

I didn't know other OEMs besides Sun used the SPARC processors. Are there any other OEM besides Tadpole and Sun that make SPARC based machines?

Re:Non-Sun OEM use SPARCcs?

[Kenja]

These days the only one I can think of would be Samsung. However there are a bunch of small companies htat buy motherboards and CPUs from Sun and built systems. In the past there where groups such as ROSS that not unly used the Sun CPU design but went beyond that to introduce their own versions (the ROSS Hypersparc). If you hunt around you can find some cool Sparc hardware made by the clones. My fav's would be the ROSS Sparcplug, a full height drive bay Hypersparc computer and the Opus Sparcard, a Sun Sparc 5 on a ISA card.

Re:Non-Sun OEM use SPARCcs?

[otis wildflower]

Sun sells OEM mobos that can run Solaris, and there are a few manufacturers out there, though I think Axil is gone.. Fujitsu builds some enterprise-class sparc systems, and I worked on a system built by a japanese or korean company (forget which) that was just an AXi base IIRC.. Also, Integrix builds OEM systems, though I've only used their pizza-box RAIDs before..

You might be able to build your own, but these days finding a 250 or 450 on ebay may be cheaper...

Re:Non-Sun OEM use SPARCcs?

[marsvin]

Yep... lots. SPARC is an open standard. Fujitsu and TI make (made?) them, amongst others.

Re:Non-Sun OEM use SPARCcs?

[Lupulack]

Heck yeah , Fujitsu , Tatung , Toshiba just to name a few.

Check out www.sparc.com for lists of members of the Sparc consortium.

Re:Non-Sun OEM use SPARCcs?

[mungtor]

I think the company would be Tatung, and I have also worked on Sparc based boxes built by Axil.

Re:Non-Sun OEM use SPARCcs?

[Swift Kick]

There are a number of companies that make SPARC-based machines. The SPARC architecture is open, so there are several companies that make SPARC processor-based systems, in addition to Sun.
You can check http://www.sparc.com for a list of the companies that are members of the SPARC organization, and check the list of vendors.
You can actually buy a SPARC motherboard and processor and build your own system, if you so wish.

Re:Non-Sun OEM use SPARCcs?

[Anonymous Coward]

NatureTech has a line of Sparc laptops.....

http://www.naturetech.com.tw/index.htm

Re:Non-Sun OEM use SPARCcs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fujitsu actually designs their own SPARC CPUs.

Military and certain agencies

[BWJones]

but with the TiBooks and Linux working on laptops, how much do people need Solaris laptops?

Well, I can tell you that there are certainly a number of users in the military as well as applications that certain government and quasi government agencies use running on Solaris. A few years ago at the Whitehouse, I noticed a number of Solaris workstations and the first laptop running Solaris I had ever seen. I don't know about things currently, but I expect there to be more Windows machines there now than there used to be. Although our Veep Dick Cheney appears to use a TiBook.....

Additionally, the TiBook is limited to 1GB of RAM (hardware limited NOT the OS which can address much more) and there are number of users in the sciences and video editing markets who would like portable 2GB workstations, but given Apple's focus on video editing, I would expect the next TiBook revision (not the one next week) will address more RAM.

Re:Military and certain agencies

[mcfiddish]

Although our Veep Dick Cheney appears to use a TiBook.....

I would love to see that "switch" ad.

Re:Military and certain agencies

[Anonymous Coward]

"And the nuclear football went beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep."

"It was really... a bummer."

Re:Military and certain agencies

[Anonymous Coward]

"I needed a creative laptop to match my creative accounting, and the TiBook fit the bill..."

Re:Military and certain agencies

[evilviper]

It went like 'beep beep' and then the nukes launched.

My name is Dick Cheney, and my Windows box wiped out Iraq.

Why do people need it?

[antis0c]

how much do people need Solaris laptops?

Choice. Sure we balk at Microsoft people asking why anyone needs to run Linux, then we turn around and balk at someone for creating a Solaris laptop.

I think its cool, I'd like to get one for work, we use a number of Solaris only apps.

Re:Mod +Funny

[Kenja]

Lets see.

"Broken, stupid compilers". You think GCC is broken? If you don't like the compiler you're given to use, find a diferent one.

"braindead default configs". No such thing as a default config on oslaris, talk to the people who installed it.

"a useless, trash desktop". I use Gnome and KDE for my Sun box. Once again, if you dont like the tools you are given, use somthing else. Soalris 9 ships with Gnome now, KDE can be downloaded pre compiled. So what's the problem?

It sounds like you have some poorly configured Solaris systems. However that in no way means that Solaris is the problem. As they say PEBCAK (Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard).

Thank you, but how long?

[yerricde]

64bit defined from the mouths of Digital engineers

So HP says that "64-bit" refers to the sizes of integers and pointers. How long do you think it will be before a typical new desktop computer has a processor with 64-bit integer registers?

Troll.

How? Is it now considered "trollish" to ask a question and suggest possible answers?

Re:Thank you, but how long?

[GeckoX]

To ask a question and suggest possible answers? no.
To ask a question in a fasecious(sp?) tone and provide yourself with obviously pointed answers that insinuated you had no interest in anyone else answering your question because you already have all the answers...

you tell me.

Re:Thank you, but how long?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "trollish" to assert that a CPU that is part of the IA32 family is actually a 64-bit CPU.

Re:Thank you, but how long?

[Anonymous Coward]

To ask a question in a fasecious(sp?) tone and provide yourself with obviously pointed answers that insinuated you had no interest in anyone else answering your question because you already have all the answers...

Yerricide didn't do that. He was wrong, but he wasn't anywhere near a troll.

Re:Thank you, but how long?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pfft... riiiight. Hate to break it to you, but he is a well known troll.

Linux Laptops?

[Anonymous Coward]

By the way, is there a completely linux compatible laptop that comes without windows out there? Especially from the big guys : dell, IBM, etc... and no, i really dont dig winmodems..

Re:Linux Laptops?

[daveman_1]

I would recommend giving this vendor a try:

http://xtremenotebooks.com/index.html

Laptops without an OS pre-installed are possible through them and they at least appear to be reasonably priced per included laptop features. I once purchased an IBM laptop with linux pre-installed but I think they have since discontinued that option...

FYI

[Darth RadaR]

Yes, Virginia. There is a Gnome for Solaris.

Re:FYI

[zerOnIne]

indeed, running ximian gnome on my ultra30 here, and a chick two offices over has KDE on her sun box ... i'm fairly certain the CDE is mostly included to maintain full compliance with the UNIX standard ... i have no idea *why* you need to have CDE to call something a 'UNIX', but you do according to the folks who own the trademark ... and that's part of the reason why it's incorrect to call a linux system unix

Prices aren't mentioned.....

[Anonymous Coward]

But financing is! How much for one of these babies, anyway??

Re:New Tadpole SPARCbook RSN

[mobilinux]

I feel most of the EDA(Electronic Design Automation) vendors would use it, since a lot
of EDA software(esp. chip design s/w from
Cadence, Synopsys etc.) run primarily on Solaris.
I also see some web developers would find it
convenient since there are significant solaris
based web servers out there.

Re: portable vs. portable

[distributed.karma]

> Someone with legacy Solaris programs that they need to make transportable

So you can make the program portable even when it isn't portable? ;-)

Maybe I cant read

[Anonymous Coward]

perhaps I caught some illiteracy, but it looks like it says solaris 8 with 2 gigs of ram

More bits != better

[yerricde]

It's one thing to say "What do I need this for."

And I didn't ask that because I found a satisfactory answer in another comment to this article.

It's another thing to try and claim that your 32 bit computer is 64 bit.

I asked that because I did not know the accepted definition of a 64-bit computer. Another reply to my comment pointed me to a HP page claiming that "64-bit" refers to the sizes of pointers and general-purpose integer registers.

But is 32-bit always worse in practice than 64-bit? For instance, the Microsoft Xbox has a 32-bit Pentium III CPU clocked at 700 MHz, but partly because it's clocked higher than the 94 MHz 64-bit MIPS processor in the Nintendo 64 console, the Xbox can generate more detailed graphics. The GameCube also has a 32-bit processor similar to those used in Apple's iMac and TiBook computers.

Re:More bits != better

[nevershower]

The GameCube also has a 32-bit processor similar to those used in Apple's iMac and TiBook computers.

Yes, IBM makes the chip in the GameCube. Yes it is a variant of the G3, but it is very unlike the processor in the (old) iMac, and extremely unlike the processor in the TiBook.

Re:More bits != better

[Twirlip of the Mists]

But is 32-bit always worse in practice than 64-bit?

Actually, 64-bit is usually worse in practice than 32-bit, all other things being equal. Many processors let you compile code for 32-bit pointers or 64-bit pointers; the MIPS R10000 family is the one I'm familiar with. The same code compiled for the 32-bit ABI will either run at the same speed as the 64-bit version, or it will be faster. The difference is caused by cache performance. If your pointer is twice as big, you can only squeeze half of 'em into the same caches. Thus, more cache misses, and decreased performance of the application overall.

Unless you need more than 2 GB of virtual memory for your program, you should compile it with 32-bit pointers.

Re:More bits != better

[Oggust]

All that is true, but one good thing with 64-bit architextures is that you get to 64-bit data registers as well. If your app actually uses 64-bit math, having those long registers help a great deal. (The alternative is doing it with several smaller registers, tracking cthe flags and branching and stuff. Really ugly and slow, and on an architecture like IA32, where you really only have 3 registers, this gets even worse.)

/August.

Re:More bits != better

[Sparks23]

The graphics are not primarily a function of the CPU; most graphics cards -- especially the Nvidia stuff, which I believe the X-Box uses -- have their own processors on board to handle various operations.

This is why, for example, a 1.2Ghz machine with a current-generation Nvidia card will 'generate more detailed graphics' than a 2.8Ghz machine with, say, a Voodoo2. The CPU controls how fast you can calculate transformations (and any other operations) in the 3d 'world' you're displaying.

For general-purpose apps, 64-bit is slower. However, for anything involving intense floating-point math, 64-bit tends to be a lot better. Something to remember is that a lot of PC 3D graphics engines use integer math internally wherever possible rather than floating-point, which means you don't see the speed hit of floating-point math functions under a 32-bit architecture. :)

Re:More bits != better

[delong]

If your pointer is twice as big, you can only squeeze half of 'em into the same caches. Thus, more cache misses, and decreased performance of the application overall.

I hate it when my pointer is twice as big and I can only squeeze half of it into the caches. Cache misses suck, and definately decrease the performance of the whole thing. Damn straight.

Derek@killmykarma.edu

Out of Wintel, tired of being lied to.

[leandrod]

What if I do not want to feed the lesser known but equally evil half of the Wintel duopoly, and the TiBooks are either not good enough for me or produced by a equally evil company I do not trust.

Re:Out of Wintel, tired of being lied to.

[rlangis]

Use AMD and Linux? No more Win, no more Tel. ;)

Re:Out of Wintel, tired of being lied to.

[leandrod]

> Use AMD and Linux? No more Win, no more Tel. ;)

Kinda... AMD is still Intel architecture, so it helps validate the Intel marchitecture and misfeatures, even if partially. And this architecture is seriously inefficient, with huge manufacturing costs hidden by scale, huge chip real state, power consumption and heat dissipation. Ah, and yet 32/36/64 bits hybrid instead of fully 64 such as the UltraSPARC or the coming AIM PowerPCs.

Re:Out of Wintel, tired of being lied to.

[leandrod]

> yet 32/36/64 bits hybrid instead of fully 64 such as the UltraSPARC or the coming AIM PowerPCs.

Forgot to mention the notebook Alpha that HP/Q and Intel aborted.

If it's free software, you can recompile it

[yerricde]

Just because the OS runs there, it doesn't mean that the applications run there as well.

Then go to SourceForge.net by OSDN, get the source code for your applications, and recompile it. Easy.

None of what I said in the preceding paragraph applies if your enterprise relies on proprietary application software.

Re:If it's free software, you can recompile it

[Anonymous Coward]

None of what I said in the preceding paragraph applies if your enterprise relies on proprietary application software.

I've never run into a company that didn't rely to some degree on proprietary software, so I'm thinking you shouldn't have bothered posting.

Re:If it's free software, you can recompile it

[lindsayt]

There is a fair amount of Commercial (proprietary) software for Solaris/sparc, which unfortunately we can't recompile for solaris/intel. Also, if you recompile then you've lost binary compatibility and hence new bugs or problems may creep in, or bugs that exist for the sparc version will disappear. If you write code for solaris/intel there's no guarantee it will work on solaris/sparc.

As my office runs enterprise sparc servers, I hope to talk my boss into one of these.

Re:If it's free software, you can recompile it

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you fucking idiot. The real world runs on real software, not fucked up wanna-be SourceForge shit. "Oh, how I wish I could get a paying job as a programmer," these kids say. "Since I can't, I'll post my hobby projects-- with which I've since gotten bored, and that I'm incapable of finishing by myself-- on SourceForge.net by OSDN and wait for the love to pour in. Then I can put 'respected open-source community member' on my resume. I'm sure to get a job, then... and maybe I can even meet a girl! Girls like guys who give back to the community, right?"

What-the-fuck-ever, dude.

Re:If it's free software, you can recompile it

[perljon]

Exactly. Most fortune 500 companies won't even let you bring free software in the door. Use Solaris, it breaks, you call Sun on the phone and talk to the guy who wrote the component that's breaking. Linux breaks, who you going to call?

Re:If it's free software, you can recompile it

[adjusting]

>Linux breaks, who you going to call?

Ghostbusters?

Re:If it's free software, you can recompile it

[Anonymous Coward]

obviously the MS-DNS servers crashed overnight, which explains all the MS Trolls being able to post so much as they rebuild the corrupted registry that got trashed in the OS dive-bomb because the the moon is in it's quarter cycle or something...

go use your real software or reinstall windows, since you're obviously incapable of creating anything worthwhile. no, your stupid access database/excel spreadsheet that counts the zits on your head doesn't count.

I certainly would be impressed by someone able to get respect in the OSS community. btw, i'm an employer, mr mcdonald's food technician

Re:If it's free software, you can recompile it

[jo42]

> Linux breaks, who you going to call?

Guido to bitch slap Linus.

Re:If it's free software, you can recompile it

[perljon]

Something strange in your neighborhood. Who you gonna Call?

Re:If it's free software, you can recompile it

[jedidiah]

Someone should have moderated this post up as funny.

"call Sun on the phone and talk to the guy who wrote the component"

You just KILL me...

You're better than Yakov Smirnoff.

Re:Mod +Funny

[Darth RadaR]

Broken, stupid compilers; braindead default configs; a useless, trash desktop; lackluster performance; finicky printer queues; workstations that inexplicably lock up and refuse to log out; header files and libraries with all kinds of wonky problems; etc...

Any OS is gonna run like crap if it's not configured right, so I won't go into that.

If you don't like the defaults that come with Solaris, you can get quite a bit of GNU and other stuff from Sunfreeware

CPU Comparison, Anyone?

[daveman_1]

Anyone know of a rough performance comparison between linux apps running on a UltraSPARC-IIi 650MHz processor VS a new P4 or Athlon XP? This seems like a very nice laptop but I'm not at all familiar with Sparc processor performance...

Re:CPU Comparison, Anyone?

[bmajik]

any x86 today will either cost less, be faster, or, usually, both.

the reasons you want this are because
1) you need sparc/solaris machine(s)
2) you need one thats portable

Re:CPU Comparison, Anyone?

[daveman_1]

Those are good enough reasons for me. Now if I could only figure out whether or not SUNW is a good buy at ~3.00 per share...

Re:CPU Comparison, Anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of the major players in CPU market these days, considering the newest products only UltraSparc is, without any doubt, the least performing one across the board. For certain things (like, e,g,, crypto applications) its performance is apallingly poor.

Re:CPU Comparison, Anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are probably very wrong. I haven't played with a Sparc in a while, but I have a HP B180, which has a PA-Risc @ 180Mhz. It definatly smokes the 480Mhx x86, my employers forced on me. Incedently, the B180 is running HP-UX 10.20, which is a heavy weight to begin with, that has never been optimised for the CPU that the B180 has. The advantage of performance devices like the PA-Risc and the Sparc are not so appearent running a single app, but with multiple apps running concurently, or with heavily multithreaded apps, the x86 boggs down to uslessness, while my PA-Risc keeps humming along.

Re:CPU Comparison, Anyone?

[flabbergast]

There are a few things to note I guess.
Well here at my school there is Linux lab with 866 PIII/256 RAM while we also have a variety of Sun Ultra 10s running from 300-440 mhz. its not exactly an apples to apples comparison, but the Sun workstations (I think I ran it on the 300 MHz workstations) whomped all over the PIIIs for my Artificial Intelligence project. It was a heuristic search algorithm, and the Suns would finish in under 2 minute while the PIIIs would take more than 10 minutes to spit out the same answer.
Again, not an apples to apples comparison.

On the flip side, running applications like Mozilla or KDE is exceptionally slow compared to the PIIIs.

So, for computationally hard things like heurstic search algorithms, the 64 bits sure do help, but for running KDE 3.0, Mhz seems to be the order of the day.

Re:CPU Comparison, Anyone?

[bmajik]

why are you saying probably ? if you know im wrong, say why. if you dont and you're guessing, don't say anything..

I owned 3 different sun machines before i left high school. There is an SGI sitting on the desk next to me, and a dual proc sparc at home.

preferences are preferences, numbers are another. If you cared, i could tell you _why_ the old sparcs were good at some things (MMU hardware contexts, and register windows were early optimizations that x86 didn't have for instance..)

sun simply hasn't kept up with ChipZilla. Economies of scale have made wintel what it is..
that means that sexier products are marginalized... but the average person gets more computing power for under $1k than could be had at any price just 10 years ago..

No. It's Apple now.

[Anonymous Coward]

They used to cheerlead for Linux, but check out the TiBook reverence, coming before the Linux reference.

This place is now a Mac OS X evangalism board.

Remembering Axil (was Re:Non-Sun OEM use SPARCcs?)

[nsayer]

In my youth, I actually transitioned from Apple ][ to Sun. I didn't buy my first PC until 1994 and then only to run FreeBSD on it. I was a big fan of Suns for a long time, which was tough to do given the pricing.

I wound up at one point doing some contracting for Axil. I still remember those days fondly. Among other products, Axil made a board called the Axilerate which was a drop-in replacement for the Sparcstation 1, 1+ or 2 motherboard which featured a Microsparc 2 CPU. In essence, you could upgrade your machine to the equivalent of a Sparcstation 5. I thought it was a great product (obviously modern machines are on a whole different level). Axil didn't have any sort of employee/contractor purchase program. I actually had to go to a reseller to buy my Axilerate board.

It was a shame when the asian flu hit Hyundai, which was Axil's parent company. In a cost-cutting measure, Hyundai shuttered Axil, which at the time was the #2 manufacturer of Sparc based computers (#3 was almost as far behind Axil as Axil was from Sun).

Three excellent reasons to love it...

[ALecs]

are right below the touchpad!

Ah, a laptop with a 3-button mouse - what a thing of beauty.

*sighs*

Re:Three excellent reasons to love it...

[Junta]

Not so uncommon anymore, for various reasons, a large number of three button touchpad equipped laptops are available.

Thinkpads, for example have three buttons. Some HPs do as well. Some others I'm sure, but I haven't dealt with them...

I, on the other hand, have a one-button touchpad.... My optical 5-button,2 wheel mouse compensates though (not bad for 12 bucks...)

Re:Mod +Funny

[Chibi Merrow]

Actually not referring to GCC (which is pseudo broken in its support of templated classes on our installation, but then again it's old (Not even EGCS!)) but Sun's proprietary compiler, CC. Sun's CC is very broken... It goes all wonky on templated classes inside templated classes and introduces really weird errors, segfaults, and has a weird way of forgetting about symbols during linking... Were we using a modern GCC (and if a modern GCC had fixed the issues we had w/ templated classes) I might have a higher opinion of the OS.

Default configs you probably have got me on, that I should take up w/ the admins...

Other desktop options would be nice, but we're stuck w/ the default CDE install. It is an issue of the admins not giving us options... But all the same, CDE was developed by Sun and a few other vendors and the only use I've found for it is to have multiple terminal windows opened at once. The interface just slows me down when I'm trying to work. Putting Gnome on the system wouldn't make the other issues magically vanish, however...

That's why I wanted a definition

[yerricde]

I think my trs-80 laptop is 64-bit because it can add two 64-bit numbers.

Which is why I stressed the importance of a clear definition of "64-bit" that excludes processors commonly considered "32-bit" or less. This AC provided the answer.

No, just fuck PoizonBOx

[yerricde]

And then one day... We'll FUCK THE USA!!!

No, just fuck PoizonBOx.

Just a friendly reminder to keep your SPARC system updated with the latest Solaris operating environment, to keep out crackers with sad minds.

Fun With Sparc Hardware

[peatbakke]

I was hoping it would share some other great features with Sun servers, but alas, I'll have to wait for a laptop with hot swappable CPU and memory modules ..

Sarcasm aside, Tadpole makes some great products. They've been building laptops that put most others to shame for years ... I've only played with one (mmm, trade shows), but they're solid and fast little buggers. Heavy, and the battery life isn't very good, but if you need a Solaris workstation on the road ..

My other favorite style of Sparc system was the Ross SPARCplug. It was a full server, packed into a two (or three?) 5.25 inch drive bays. Stick it in your PC, plug in a network cable, and pow -- stealth server! Dual hypersparc CPUs, 256MB of RAM, SCSI, 100Base/T ethernet ... at the time (mid-ninties), it was a rocket! They pop up from time-to-time on eBay .. usually a few hundred bucks now, as opposed to several thousand dollars back in the day.

Hmm. You can also find raftloads of old IPXes and stuff, for dirt cheap (usually under $100). Tons of fun. Beats the pants off of a low end PDA for cheap thrills.

Just think .. for about $1000, you too could own a REAL beowulf cluster, running on Sun hardware! Now that's something to write home about, even if your nodes are only running at 25MHz .. but even then, you'd still be surprised at what they can do.

Re:Mod +Funny

[Kenja]

So install GCC. It should install into user space without any problem. You'll just have to change you're path so that it finds GCC before CC (which I've only ever used to compile GCC).

If the admins won't let you install any packages then you may be stuck with CDE for the interface. However you could try using Openlook until CDE starts to look good.

But it *has* to be Intel or Mac.....

[Junta]

I got a Tadpole Sparcbook 2 from work. About a month later, my apartment was broken into and it, among other things was stolen. So my girlfriend was calling all the local pawn shops to make sure they would keep an eye out for it. I came through the door on such a call and she said 'I'm tired of dealing with this guy, he wants to talk to you'. And so I answered and he asked what type of Laptop it was, and I replied with Tadpole Sparcbook 2. He said he didn't recognize the brand and if it was Intel or a Mac, and I said neither, it is a Sparc, and he replied that all computers were either Intel or Mac, even if rebranded something else. He asked if it ran DOS or Mac, and I said "SunOS". He said he didn't want to know the application I run on it, but what comes up when I turn it on before running anything. Finally I said 'If something comes into your store that looks like a laptop but you don't know what the hell it exactly is, it's probably mine...

Evidently no one else knew enough to buy it either, and so when they caught the guy a year later, that was the only thing of ours they had not managed to offload. When I went to the police to reclaim it, I was fully prepared to go to lengths to show I knew the password, but they said 'just take it'. Then an officer asked me if that was a good brand of laptop and would I recommend it for their college aged kid....

Oh the nostalgia working on that brings me... SunOS 4.1.1... As an aside, anyone know where I could get a replacement battery, software updates, and/or the little scsi plug adapter for this sucker?

Also have a new iBook (for when I need battery or don't want to take forever to do anything), and bought my Fiancee a PC laptop (linux/WinXP dual boot).

Re:But it *has* to be Intel or Mac.....

[dhovis]

where I could get a replacement battery

I don't know about the rest, but the best course of action with the battery is to get it re-celled. Inside the battery casing is usually just standard sized NiCad or NiMH or LiIon cells (depending on the age). Search around, there are companies that specialize in exactly this.

Look at the xrays of a TiBook, for example. You can see the cells inside the battery in the lower left corner.

mobile workstation problems

[yerricde]

it is more useful to keep your Solaris server in the datacenter and ssh into it from your mobile workstation running your preferred OS.

Possible problems: Internet latency. (I've tried ssh from Verizon dial-up Internet access to a SourceForge.net shell account, and it wasn't pretty.) Unavailability or prohibitive expense of wireless networking services in a given area.

Re:Mod +Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't like the defaults that come with Solaris, you can get quite a bit of GNU and other stuff from Sunfreeware

"Stone soup isn't bland! If you don't like how it tastes, just add some salt, pepper, carrots, onions, meat, and potatoes."

The uses of a Solaris notebook

[Princeofcups]

1 - Jump start. This is a beautiful box to ethernet over to your new server to install Solaris via jumpstart, especially if you need to do the install while off the net, e.g. a tripwired hardened server like a firewall running Checkpoint Firewall/1.

2 - CDE. So many of the admin tools for SunOne software are buggy in any version of X other than standard CDE. Examples are the directory/web server java based console.

3 - Portable development. Let's say that you are debugging Sparc assembly for a new device driver, or just testing your C code on a particular patch level of Solaris XYZ to find issues with the shared libraries, and you would rather sit in the coffee shop than in your dusty cube.

4 - Portable 64 bit processing. Particularly useful for math or physics types who want to crank out some data on the way to a conference or in the hotel room. (Yes, 1GB of RAM, but no limit on Swap. Not to mention REALLY big Ints.)

5 - Full solaris application testing environment. A wonderful thing to have to take to datacenters in other parts of the country which are not part of the corporate backbone yet to help you figure out why those new Websphere application servers cannot talk SSL LDAP over 636 to the new SunOne Directory Servers.

6 - I could keep going, but I have to get back to work. :-) I want one!

jfs

SparcBOOK 6500s

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a Beowolf Cluster of THESE!!!

I emailed them and got their brochures (via mail)

[BoomerSooner]

They are 5000 to 8000 depending on the config. The new ones didn't have prices yet so the $8000 is for the 2GB system.

Actually prices aren't that bad when comparing to average Sun prices.

Obligatory Movie Reference.

[cybermace5]

It may have a RISC processor, but does it have a 28 dot 8 modem in it?

TechnoLust

[screwthemoderators]

A geek NEEDS this- how can you ask such a question. Actually I'm disappointed that Tadpole doesn't make AlphaBooks anymore. I'd rather have a portable Tru64 machine. Oh well.

How Much?

[theridersofrohan]

but with the TiBooks and Linux working on laptops, how much do people need Solaris laptops?

Well let's see:

650MHz UltraSparc III Processor (64bit)

(up to) 4 GB Ram

(up to) 160GB HDD

dual ethernet

15.1" LCD (up to 1400 x 1050)

Who's drooling? Certainly not me. Nooo sirrreee. Dude, I'm getting a Dell!

Re:How Much?

[Anonymous Coward]

The thought of a 650 mHz UltraSPARC IIi with 4 gb of RAM at your portable beck-and-call doesn't make you sexually aroused? Go back to your Gateway 2000, you cretin.

Re:How Much?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's drooling? Certainly not me. Nooo sirrreee. Dude, I'm getting a Dell!

You misspelled "IBM."

LEARN TO WRITE C!

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn to write C

$ cat c-source
main(){
printf("My computer is %d bits\n", sizeof( int) * 8);
}

$ gcc c-source /usr/bin/ld:c-source: file format not recognized; treating as linker script /usr/bin/ld:c-source:1: parse error
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

Re:LEARN TO WRITE C!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you learn, instead. You know that little ".c" on the end of the filename for gcc isn't just for show.

Re:LEARN TO WRITE C!

[Wdomburg]

Learn to name files with the proper extension

$ cat source.c
> main(){
> printf("My computer is %d bits\n", sizeof(int)\
* 8);
> }
> !
$ gcc source.c
$ ./a.out
My computer is 32 bits

Matt

Re:LEARN TO WRITE C!

[elphkotm]

Put .c at the end of your file idiot.

Re:LEARN TO WRITE C!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it wasn't a valid program anyway. It should use CHARBITS because a char is not always 8 bits in C (though a "byte" is always one char).

Re:LEARN TO WRITE C!

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, even on a 64bit machine, int may have a different size. There is no way to know the natural word size of a processor. In fact, most current 64bit processors are just as fast with 32bit data types.

Re:LEARN TO WRITE C!

[Anonymous Coward]

FAWKING TROLLS!

[insert picture of Lars Ulrich here]

Re:LEARN TO WRITE C!

[d2002xx]

Put .c at the end of your file idiot.

Nope. .m is better.

Just to give you an idea of the price.....

[MattGWU]

We have this price list from 1998, which is the second or third generation of machines. I have what I think is a first generation SPARCbook (a 3XP w/ 85 mHz MicroSPARC II) I got on eBay for $110 after shipping. Here's an idea of what this might run you. Prices are in Australian Dollars (1998 dollars. I ran 36,990 AUD through a converter and it spit back $20,669.64, to give you an idea).

SPARCBook price List

Start selling your children and vital organs now to avoid the market flood in Dec when these things come out. What I'd like to know is if it's running a stock Solaris, or a special Sparcbook version like they had for mine. It had a different kernel and I believe a different version of CDE (I don't know, I don't have it, or any OS on the machine for that matter). Kernel was to deal with all the whacky hardware packed into the magnesium monster, especially the microntroller that prevented ungraceful heat death and power management, that I don't think any BSD or Linux deals with 100% correctly. Moot point as the 3XP doesn't have any good way of getting an OS onto the machine (no floppy or CD-rom included, whacky network port [that you can get a cable to convert to AUI, which is less whacky]).

It's nice to see that they are still doing new hardware, but these definately aren't meant to take market share away from Apple or x86 in consumer laptops.

See also Tadpole AlphaBook, Tadpole 7007/IBM N40 RS/6000 laptop with a neat Byte writeup here. (portable AIX is a steal at $12,000. Now there is NO escape!)

Re:Just to give you an idea of the price.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Tadpoles are much cheaper than before..knowhere near $20K US.

Call 800-734-5483 for specific pricing.

UltraSPARC 2i

[Sivar]

Isn't the US2i artificially limited to 2GB of RAM?

The website seems to say that the laptop simultaneously has 4GB and 2GB. *THAT* is the power of Sun hardware. :)

Alpha Laptop

[screwthemoderators]

Tadpole use to make an AlphaBook, but stopped a long time ago. (It won't even run WinNT) They did exist once, so if you're really motivated...

4 GB RAM

[DuckWing]

not to mention that you *need* 4GB of RAM to run Solaris with any kind of decent performance. It's a hog and many solaris apps are hogs, and just plain slow!

Re:4 GB RAM

[chadworthman]

Umm... no it isn't and no you don't. Prove it.

Tadpole

[dozer]

A few years ago, I travelled around Europe supporting my company's product on site. I'd try to fix a bug, then send the patch back to the US to be built (no source code could ever touch a client's computer). Turnaround times were over a day, due to the time change.

Then I got one of these (for hrumptyhrumptens of thousands of dollars). It paid for itself in a month. I could do builds on-site, leading to turaround times of less than an hour. I no longer had to get a hotel for most support visits! I sure had a need for a non-Linux notebook.

Of course, it radiated so much heat out the keyboard that my hands would just drench the thing in sweat. That got a little gross. But it worked like a champ.

Market research

[A_Duck_Named_Ping]

>What a fantastic marketplace! There could be ... dozens of folks like that! No, really - I'm CERTAIN there are at least 30!

Interesting point, though, what did the marketing report look like? Targeted demographics? From their site:

# Sales Engineers were burning out from the physical and mental stress of carrying and shipping full size desktop equipment to customer sites. click here for more

# With portable Sun equipment, they could perform more demonstrations per month, which linked directly with the number of sales closed and therefore their bottom line.

That's right, thery are tagetting other salespeople. The economy must be worse than we though if the the saleforce of the U.S. is trying to feed on itself!

Re:Market research

[kwerle]

And that's the first smart thing anyone on this thread has said - including me. Sales folks are the only one's I can really see buying this stuff, just so they can tote around a full DB and 'big app'. And I still can't imagine all that many sales. Not for the amount this thing is gonna cost.

Re:Market research

[Anonymous Coward]

And I still can't imagine all that many sales. Not for the amount this thing is gonna cost.

For the market these things will be used in it should be paid for with 1 or 2 sales. Really, if you have a salesperson trying to sell you thing that requires a big Sun, do you expect it to come cheap?

Ditto: Defense

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, we still run quite a lot of Solaris based apps in the defense industry.. despite M$ best efforts, their good ol boy-girl IT socialist councils, and travel expenses to send the execs to neat places to learn about the latest proprietary tr*sh spewing forth from the Redmond compound.

This product also may help marketing and small businesses with traveling demos. Wasn't so long ago we were held hostage by SCO to fill such portable *nix based needs. So, power to Sun!.. and best of luck to those who still believe there is a very lucrative business model below the application layer (or even for ubiquitous apps such as word processing, spreadsheets and such.. hilarious / evolve) HW and services are still sound though.

This is neat and all, but...

[rickwood]

Why isn't there a price on the freaking page? If I wanted to talk to someone on the phone, I wouldn't be using the web!

I mean, I'd really like a solaris laptop. It would beat the hell out of my portable rack rig. But damn it, I don't want to have to fend off sales reptiles just to find out how much it is.

All I can think is that they want to "personalize" the price based on how much money they think they can get out of you.

Solaris x86 sux eggs

[DuckWing]

I maintain 40 solaris x86 pc's in a university lab, plus several solaris servers (some sparc and one x86). Solaris on intel just plain sux when it comes to hardware support. Very limited NIC's, sound, and video can be used. Not to mention solaris for x86 doesn't have a journalling file system like Veritas for their Sparc counterpart.

If Sun wants to make Solaris x86 viable, they need to have MUCH better hardware support, make it cheaper ($99 for Solaris 9 don't cut it), promote it more, and conform to more standards like the FSB.

We used to use them

[gr8fulnded]

We would use SPARC laptops as portable jumpstart servers. Since you can only jumpstart from a server on the clients subnet, it's much easier to bring this down, re-ip it, and start jumping then it is to wheel down a E6500.

Re:We used to use them

[El Volio]

Since you can only jumpstart from a server on the clients subnet...

Not true, the boot server has to be on the same subnet (the boot and install server do not have to be the same machine). And if you have control of the routers and can set up directed broadcast, even that might not be necessary.

Tibooks are nice, SPARCbooks are just plain cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi,

I've got a Tibook running Debian and I enjoy it very much...BUT...I will have to buy a SPARCbook because they're just plain cool. Who cares whether it's actually needed - since when did any of us care about such things :-)

Jon (Jon Masters).

No docking station?

[AGumbus]

So, you've got to burn your hands on the keyboard to use the thing? It's only radiating a little while it's churning bits...

Big clue: docking station would definitely be a worthwhile accessory...

Portable Oracle

[phaetonic]

Having a mobile sparc platform capable of running Oracle is something great in its own right; the cost of shipping an E250 to trade shows and customer sites for demos will be dramatically reduces, as well as engineers who can go on-site in more than one location per day to demo their app, I think it has some really good benefits.

TiBook All the way...

[mazdak_rezvani]

Really, If you are in need of UNIX on a laptop, you should stop wasting your time and money with other things, and get a nice Titanium Laptop with OS X... It changed the way I do my work...
Solaris is very nice... but only ON THE SERVER!

Re:LOOT AT THIS!

[Anonymous Coward]

So then whats the point of it being a PORTABLE LAPTOP if it's to be used as a SERVER? You have a brain, use it.

What about my Atari Jaguar, that was 64 bit.

[Anonymous Coward]

I did the math as Atari told me.

That reminds me...

[Dr. Cody]

That reminds me of the tragic birth of the DEC's infamous Alpha laptop.

Same reason we need pumpkin computer articles

[billstewart]

As with the recent pumpkin-based computer case, it's nice to have articles about Sparcbooks because they're cool. However, it's even nicer to have Sparcbook articles, because the things are in fact useful if you're a developer or user in the Sun Sparc world, which many people still are (alas, not me any more :-) (It's also surprising to hear that these guys are not dead yet - I haven't seen one of their machines in a long time.)

If *you* want to carry a pizza-box Sun on Caltrain and use one of the few cars that still have electric outlets, go ahead...

Re:Same reason we need pumpkin computer articles

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, if an article can get up with a reason of "Neat, somebody put a computer in a pumpkin" then an article with the justification of "Neat, somebody put a Sparc-based computer in a notebook".

It's the same thing, putting something where convential wisdom would say that it shouldn't be.

Here you go, I found an email with prices & na

[BoomerSooner]

This is a month old however:

Tadpole has discounted our 500MHz IIe laptop with the 14.1" LCD
1024x768, with 20-60GB HDD and up to 2GB RAM. Let me know if you have any
interest.

500MHz IIe, 14.1"LCD, 20GB HDD, 256MB RAM $5,489.50
500MHz IIe, 14.1"LCD, 20GB HDD, 512MB RAM $5,939.25
500MHz IIe, 14.1"LCD, 20GB HDD, 1GB RAM $6,750.00
500MHz IIe, 14.1"LCD, 20GB HDD, 2GB RAM $8,730.50
can expand to 60GB HDD

Tadpole also announced a 650MHz IIe, up to 160GB HDD, 4GB RAM coming in
Dec., 2002

Dennis Vines
Sr. Account Manager
Tadpole
2300 Faraday Ave
Carlsbad, CA 92008
PH: 800-770-9003 x 216
FX: 760-931-1063
Email: dennisv@ca.tadpole.com

Portable Solaris Workstations and High Density Servers providing
solutions from the Rack to the Road

Spelling flame and statement of obvious

[for(;;);]

> Do they really expect any self-respecting Unix
> user will by this???

By which I assume you mean, "Do they really expect any self-respecting Unix user to pass this up?"

From Dictionary.com:
----------
bye1 also by Pronunciation Key (b)
n.

1. A secondary matter; a side issue.
2. Sports. The position of one who draws no opponent for a round in a tournament and so advances to the next round.
----------

Oh, ho ho ho! I do so love myself. Anyway, I remap every keyboard I touch, much to my officemates' chagrin. CapsLock makes a fine control.

Sun doesn't use 'em

[ToasterTester]

I work in a large Sun shop and work with Sun staff all the time and they have flown me into Sun in the Silicon Valley for visits. I have only seen one Sun staffer over the years use a Sparc laptop. Even that person griped about what a dog it was. Most the Sun staff I've seen have your typical x86 laptop. Some run Solaris x86 when they can (a lot of compatiblility issues) and the rest I see run some combo of Linux and Windows.

Biggest problem with Sparc laptop are cost. Just not enough bang for the buck compared to an x86 laptop.

Re:Sun doesn't use 'em

[glitchvern]

How much do they cost? I couldn't find the price on the site. I'm not thinking about buying one or anything, just curious.

Re:Sun doesn't use 'em

[shaldannon]

I haven't seen a cost either, but the last time I recall seeing a price tag attached to a Solaris-running laptop with some version of Sparc CPU, the price was around $10k (of course, this was in 1997, so prices may have changed). From what I gather, when dealing with Sun (and compatible) hardware, the old yacht motto applies: "if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it."

Re:Sun doesn't use 'em

[ToasterTester]

I haven't seen recent prices but in the past they were about twice what a x86 laptop was.

Sun doesn't even use them...

[Anonymous Coward]

The company I work for uses Sun servers quite extensively, we probably own one of every model of server they've ever built. From the E15K down to the first Sparcstations ever built.

So I've seen my fair share of Sun staff on and off-site, and not once did I ever see one of them toting a Sparc based laptop around. And I've never seen any of them running Solaris x86 on their Intel laptops either, their standard for mobile users as far as I can tell is Win98.

If Sun doesn't even outfit their own employees with the technology (the Sparc platform in general, and Solaris OS) they try to sell, how convinced are you that it is applicable to this type of solution? Or maybe even others?

Fair enough, if you're a developper and want to simply compile code that will be binary compatible with you 72-way E15K and need to do so at your nearby Horebucks while sipping a Venti Fagacino then this might make sense...but seriously what a waste of money, especially for the performance you'll get out these ancient US2 cpus...just look at spec.org. You'll notice that a 650Mhz PIII is at least 25% faster on integer performance and maybe 10% slower on floating point...does Intel still make those? Most people can pick up a 2 Ghz that will deliver maybe triple the performance for 1/5 th the price.

I find anything to do with Sun, Solaris, and Sparc and people suddenly forget about price/performance. Sun does a really good job selling overpriced purple boxes with mediocre reliability and performance.

I don't hate Sun per se, it just bothers me to see the boner some people get over them without truly opening their eyes to some of the other sexy tech out there.

Anvil racks

[kingsqueak]

They use Anvil racks in the music biz, armored 19" racks on wheels. You could easily have one made up to house 16 or so U's of hardware, wire the whole thing into powerstrips so you just need one outlet on a site. Sure it's not as portable as the Tadpole, but it's a hell of a lot less than the $20k or so the Tadpoles go for and it's a lot harder and more obvious to steal a trunk on wheels than a laptop.

With an Anvil rack you could have switches/hubs/servers whatever you wanted. For $20k you can buy a silly amount of Netra X1's and a rack.

Solaris Sun Ray

[mrvis]

My school has a SunRay system (a 4 processor, 4 gig of RAM machine that supports 30 thin clients in a lab). I'm ssh'ed in right now. The sizeof(void*) program reports 32 bits.

This lab was installed about a year ago. Has Sun just become 64bit or is something funny going on?

Re:Solaris Sun Ray

[Twirlip of the Mists]

I've never done any real programming on a Sun, but on an SGI you have to specifically tell the compiler to compile to a 64-bit ABI if you want to use 64-bit pointers. The syntax is "cc -64 -whatever foo.c." If you omit the -64 flag, you get a 32-bit binary. The same may be true on a Sun.

Re:Solaris Sun Ray

[Anonymous Coward]

You gotta use gcc > 3.0 and say -m64 on a sun.

Re:Solaris Sun Ray

[Alien Being]

UltraSparcs are 64 bit processors, but older versions of Solaris are partly 32-bit and partly 64-bit. Your compiler may support something like "arch=sparcV9".

Re:Solaris Sun Ray

[simm_s]

Yep, On Sun you need to specify cc -xarch=v9 foo.c and you'll get 64 bit programs. You also need the Forte C compiler to do it.

Re:Solaris Sun Ray

[Paul Komarek]

gcc and Compaq's cc on Alpha automatically use 64 bit pointers and 32 bit ints. Perhaps this is because the Alpha has always been a 64 bit cpu?

-Paul Komarek

Re:Solaris Sun Ray

[chemguru]

In gcc 3.x, you must specify -m64...

Re:I emailed them and got their brochures (via mai

[EvlOvrLrd]

I comparing a 'comparable' build of a Sun workstation (memory, hard drive, single CPU, etc), the Tadpole is very nicely priced. Coupled with the fact that it is portable just adds to the appeal to anyone who has such a need.

Personally, I would rather shell out less for a 30% slower CPU and have the portability, and do the work I needed where I am, than to have to fight with everyone on a VPN and ssh to my workstation when I am not in the office.

Solaris laptop?

[newt]

It isn't a Solaris Laptop, it's a SPARC/Linux laptop. :-)

- mark

How much do people need Linux laptops?

[r7]

>With Solaris working on laptops, how much do people need Linux laptops?

This is the same question really. Solaris is great for those of us who
don't absolutely need _free_ software (free as in don't ask _me_ to pay
for it).

I'd rather pay for Solaris and get its bullet-proof logging filesystem,
reliable package management software, tech support, and generally
bug-free OS.

YMMV

Other SparcBooks

[Auralis]

Well, if the tadpole is to expensive, take a look here: http://www.naturetech.com.tw/index.htm nice and not bigger then most x86 notebooks, ranging from 400 up to 650mhz, dvd/cdrw combi drive and stuff.

Re:Other SparcBooks

[daveman_1]

[From the naturetech website]
"We see it reasonable that list pricing for 888P and 888P+ should be within the range of $6,000 to $9,000" said Sam Chen, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing," and have confidence that no other similar can compete with this price-performance in the market."

If this is to be considered reasonable, I think it is fairly safe to say I won't be owning one. While there are some features in there which appeal to me(built-in SCSI, but no mention of whether the HD is SCSI) it had better be every bit as fast as my desktop for that price. I do realize that one should expect to pay a premium for a portable SPARC laptop but that is in the range of "I want to see it before I buy it.".

Check these out-Cheaper than Tadpole I think...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.naturetech.com.tw/index.htm

I need it because

[E1v!$]

I want a really fast word processor. I'm sure that's all it's good for. Right?

Useful for client/server product demonstrations

[djork30]

Actually this is a really useful product and an excellent new design for individuals such as myself. I Work for software company where it is not uncommon to travel to different parts of the globe and need to demonstrate our client/server product. Imagine the problems connecting from the islands! Nearly impossible to have good bandwith.

Re:Oh, come on (Solaris Users of the World UNITE)

[Tisha_AH]

Hooray! There are a few of us out there that try to run a computer on something other than an In-hell processor. I have a bunch of SPARC boxes just for the heck of having something that hasn't sold it's soul to Gates.

RISC is good!

[BitwizeGHC]

"Display?"

"Active matrix, man! A million psychedelic colors!"[1]

"I bet it looks crispy in the dark!"

[1]Cereal Killer is the direct spiritual ancestor of Steven the Dell Kid. I'm sure of it.

www.naturetech.com.tw

[Anonymous Coward]

Also there

Tadpole x86 laptop

[red_dragon]

Tadpole once made a pretty spiffy Intel-based laptop computer, circa 1995 or thereabouts. Other than the processor (it had a 120- or 133-MHz Pentium), it had everything their SPARC-based laptops had at the time, including built-in SCSI (the internal HDD was also SCSI) and a 3-button Trackpoint-like stick. I believe that was their only Intel-based laptop, though; most people don't seem to appreciate over-engineered products like theirs.

Re:I emailed them and got their brochures (via mai

[Anonymous Coward]

> 5000 to $8000

But, couldn't one set up a Beowolf Cluster of 20 used laptops running Debian for that much? :-)

Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why would google use Linux on their servers.
Please ask them to switch to Solaris ASAP.

And please pay the licence fees for them.
Mucho thanks.

Re:Hmmm

[ViVeLaMe]

strange, i didn't see anything about licencing prices..
free as in beer, uh? like, say, red hat advanced server, or the high-end versions of suse?

Why Tadpole?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why buy an monster tadpole that isn't available when you could buy a naturetech that is cheaper, smaller and better looking?

*worship*

[Walterk]

I'm not worthy! *worship* I'm not worthy! *bow* I'm not worthy! *worship* I'm not worthy! *bow*

</wayne's world>

Solaris is a commercial success...

[Anonymous Coward]

"- but with the TiBooks and Linux working on laptops, how much do people need Solaris laptops? "

Alot of people who have jobs tend to use Solaris to get work done, so a Solaris based laptop might be nice. I know this will come as a shock but not everyone thinks Linux is the end all OS.

it's so crazy that it just might work

[Zorikin]

"Solaris Laptop."

Bwa ha ha ha ha!
Hee hee hee hee!
Oh ho ho ho ho!

Hilarious!

Ahem. I'll take two.

Neat, but how much will it cost?

[benmhall]

Me, I _am_ a fan of Sun. I think they have a disproportionately bad rap for a company that has offered real innovation in the computing industry. Sure, they haven't done anything really revolutionary in the last year or two, but being the "dot in .com" I understand that they're just trying to keep afloat. I'm sure they'll make it through.

However, it's pretty hard to justify buying even their low-end hardware. I wonder how much this laptop is? (Yes, I realize it's not from Sun...) There was no mention of price on the site.

I know, probably one of those "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" laptops. Seriously, though, any idea of an estimated cost? (Even unofficial...)

How much?

[Pi Kapp 142]

I am drooling, I want one. Now. But how much does it cost? Plz, Dear God, it is not one of those cases of "If you have to ask, its too mcuh." is it?

Imagine...

[cachorro]

But, couldn't one set up a Beowolf Cluster of 20 used laptops running Debian for that much? :-)

Imagine...lugging around a Beowolf Cluster in your brief case.

HP-UX laptop

[Brother52]

If you think SPARC laptop is weird, Tadpole done an HP-UX laptop earlier. It's called PrecisionBook, runs on 160MHz PA-7300LC RISC CPU and is pretty featureful.

Too bad Ebay search for it yilded no results ;(

Parts

[erik umenhofer]

I had one last year. It was really cool. It felt like a solid piece of metal. I loved holding it because it made me feel like I was carrying a real machine and not a bunch of plastic. I got parts at a couple of places.

• Ebay for starters.
  
• comp.sys.sun.wanted
• comp.sys.sun.misc
• comp.sys.sun.hardware
  found some good stuff there
  
• http://www.sunhelp.org/info-sparcbook.php
  this used to be a good site.
  
• http://www.sunfreeware.com/
  that's a good place for solaris software
  

Re:Still one question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tadpoles cost anywhere from 6K to 12K

Call Tadpole directly for specific pricing
800-734-5483

Re:This is neat and all, but... NEED PRICING?

[Anonymous Coward]

For pricing email to sales@ca.tadpole.com

Tadpole Sparcbook 2

[morrison]

My, the stories I have on the SparcBook 2! A few years ago, I salvaged two SparcBook 2's from work that had been wiped clean. Neither had their battery, floppy, cdrom -- just a power supply for each. I was curious and destructive, so I completely ripped one apart keeping only the hard drives (they had two) and display for parts(Sorry, no pics), even ditching the extra power supply (it was bulky and heavy) -- that was a mistake.

I kept the other SparcBook with the hopes of reviving it someday. Those suckers fortunately have bootp/tftp boot-loader support built in to their firmware. I got my hands on some ThinkNet -> Ethernet adapters pretty easily, but after attempting to get a bunch of linux and bsd kernels to network boot and only getting failures and panics, I put it back up on a shelf.

I continued to dig for details on the machine, and found quite a load of information. (I have a repository of goodies that I intend to post *some day* like pinout schematics, hardware specs, mailing list info, etc) Still nothing that helped me boot it up..

Last year, I pulled it off the shelf again when I was lucky enough to trade my spare hard drives that I ripped out of the first machine for the original custom Tadpole CDs that someone else had spares of. Now, all I'm missing is a special SCSI adapter they used (I have an old Sparc SCSI CDROM drive) or a machine that can actually boot the old Sun Solaris 1.0.2 discs!

The best part is the day I got the CD's, the power supply died. The SparcBook just happened to be sitting on top of an IBM ThinkPad that I owned. I pulled the plug from the thinkpad and (low and behold) I plugged it in and it worked! After doing some math, the thinkpad adapter was almost the exact same power as the old SparcBooks, not to mention the plug being identical! Now, that was lucky!

So, to this day, the little guy still sits on the shelf waiting to make his presence known.. [sniff]

Re:Tadpole Sparcbook 2

[erik umenhofer]

Do you have a floppy for thing? If you can track one down, just to a net install of OpenBSD or Netbsd, I think both have X support. Also I know Solaris 2.6 stock will run pretty well on a Sparcbook 3 ("well" is a relative term). Usenet is the place for finding parts these days.

Re:Tadpole Sparcbook 2

[morrison]

Alas, no floppy, not that it would help much. I did try a net install of both OpenBSD and NetBSD, with no luck. Like I mentioned earlier, there is firmware support for booting a kernel over bootp/tftpd via the built-in network port. The Sparcbook 2 has some proprietary video chipset and firmware, though, that causes the bootstrap of all the kernels to fail.

+5 Informative?

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderators on crack again!

Re:+5 Informative?

[ArsonSmith]

No, I just think that someone sees it at +4 funny and mods it up as something diffrent because it is suppose to add to the comeadic value.

Re:+5 Informative?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. I never would have brought that up to +5!!!

And I wrote the damned post in the first place. :-)

You are missing the point...

[da5idnetlimit.com]

Guess what you could do with a SPAC Linux notebook...

Compared to what you can get on the market, this notebook could become a "Full Fledged Powerhouse", allowing you much more computing power on the road for... 1024fps Tux Racer ?

Or, as a nifty hacker, having more power to hard break a code on the network you just infiltrated ?...

Think POWER user, Cad designers ...
Think WEP Key hacking
Think.. and you will find some uses for a largely superior CPU architecture...

What I need is a power spec of the CPU in Bogomips or something...

Re:You are missing the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of crack are you smoking? A 650MHz UltraSparc IIi is damn slow by today's laptop standards (and no, I'm not simply comparing megahertz with Intels).

Oh would I love one of those.

[tymellon]

I would love one, but I would probably drool on it until it fried.

Mmmm...sparc.

windowing system - what you like

[martintt]

All the suns in the lab at uni here are configured to run CDE, GNOME or Openwindows, but there are several other flavours being used - enlightenment etc,

So they are perfectly good *nix machines: gcc enlightenment, bash, remapped keyboard, what more do you want?

Hey if you spend a little while you can almost convince yourself that the Ultra 10 infront of you is a perfectly good Slakware PII 350 box, then you realise the opengl is nasty indexed colour mode.

- You can console yourself that even if the OS isn't bullet proof (it isn't) the physical hardware probably is, Sun do make lovely cases.

- then you remember the list price of the hardware.

Re:No prices on their site

[Narchie Troll]

OS X runs on 64-bit laptops now? Apple makes 64-bit laptops now? Where, where?

Ummmm

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

Who CAN'T justify a need for a Unix laptop w/ 4GIGS of RAM?!

Oh, stop please....

[jotaeleemeese]

Why is that all the companies producing software for geophysics and the banking industry are not running like crazy to port everything to Linux on x86?

Hemos its not for people its for the government

[Anonymous Coward]

People dont buy tadpoles, governments do. And the govt is probably tadpole's only customer.

ah, the memories

[g4dget]

After being a long-time Solaris user, the steep price of the Tadpole was the last straw when I needed a UNIX laptop--that's what made me switch to Linux, and I have never looked back.

Not a ringing endorsement

[jelyon]

Friend of mine, who was an SA (Sun, NT, etc) at an Austin tech company, said in response:

"I had a couple of Tadpoles at (co. name deleted). Overpriced (like 10K) pieces of shit."

Tadpole eh?

[Ed Avis]

If this is the Tadpole laptop, just how much RAM will the Frog model have?

Perhaps it is a server. The FrogServer 450PX.

Last Post!

[alpg]

(1) Alexander the Great was a great general.
(2) Great generals are forewarned.
(3) Forewarned is forearmed.
(4) Four is an even number.
(5) Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have.
(6) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity.
Therefore, all horses are black.

- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...