[Gllug] Re: (OT) Sparcs Was: SGI Machines

[John Edwards]

On Mon, Aug 18, 2003 at 11:55:44PM +0100, Mark Hazell wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 21:06:40 +0100 Xander typed:
<snip> 

> OT :) but I was looking at buying a Sun machine from this guy a while
> ago, and couldn't make up my mind which one to go for, for most bang for
> the buck.
>  
> Which did you get, and for what purposes, if you don't mind me asking?
> Also, are they loud things, or pretty silent in use?
> 
> I was mainly looking at the SunSparc 20 (don't need the ISDN of the
> SS10) as they seem the smallest of the machines, but I'm not sure what
> services it can really be used for. What do you think would be its speed
> equivalent in the PC world?

A SparcStation 20 is about the equivalent of a Pentium. For 32bit Sun 
they and the slower SparcStation 5 are probably the best of the bunch.

It can do basic X applications OK, but don't expect it to be flying 
around in KDE, Gnome or Mozilla. Or you can use it as an X terminal 
and run the applications on a faster machine.


The key factor with the SS20s is often how many CPUs they have, the 
speed, the cache, and of course a good amount of RAM.

The Sunhelp site has a good list of the CPU modules (called Mbus):
	http://www.sunhelp.org/info-ref.php


If getting a 13W3 monitor is a pain you can try an adapter (about 
20GBP +VAT) or use a serial terminal. 

Also make sure that the machine has a proper ethernet MAC address, 
if it doesn't then the battery is probably be dead.

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|       John Edwards    Email: John.Edwards at uk.com       |
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