[Gllug] Sun Sparcstation - is it any use...?

[Nix]

On Thu, 11 Aug 2005, Ian Northeast suggested tentatively:
> Seems that way to me too, although my Ultra5 has never failed (apart
> from the time the UTP cable fell out due to lack of locking tab,
> hardly its fault; it's headless like all my Suns so this took several
> minutes of diagnosis:) I don't like the IDE disk. IMHO the Ultra2 is
> the last "proper" Sun workstation to use as a small server.

My Netra seems perfectly happy as a server for several people; it
has good disks so can do things like running rolling compiles
and regression hunts without any of the users noticing, even if
I don't use the deadline scheduler.

> I forget who mentioned that unplugging the serial cable sends a
> break. It doesn't usually, about 1 time in 4 IME. It depends on
> exactly how the pins disconnect, which is unpredictable.

My problem is that rebooting PCs sends a break down attached serial
lines, so I can't leave the serial cable plugged in from the Sun,
which means that in case of serious oops-can't-reboot-into-default-
kernel buggerups, when working remotely, I'm stuffed.

It's a dilemma. Leave the cable in and PC reboots kill the Sun, and
'cos it's serves all the home directories I have trouble getting back in
to do a `go'; take it out and severe buggerups on the Sun are
unfixable.

> single cable between 3 Suns and it works fine. You unplug it, then
> check that the Sun in question still works. If it doesn't you were
> unlucky and it saw a break

FWIW, I've never had a cable unplug send a break; maybe it's machine-
specific, or maybe I've just been very lucky.

-- 
`I work in computers so, of course, I'm an expert on everything.'
                                                     --- Simon Rumble
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