[Wolves] Sun and Solaris - worth a go??

[David Goodwin]

Matthew Revell wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm thinking about sticking Solaris on one of my spare Athlon machines 
> and perhaps running it as a combined file server, for my own network, 
> and web server. Worth a go?
> 

Can't hurt :)

I tried intel solaris (7) out ages ago on a PII 400, and found it's 
default install to be somewhat lacking (i.e. bash not there etc, and 
only CDE which I don't like) so I dropped it and went back to Linux. A 
few years later I had to admin a sparc solaris box which came with a 
minimal install, and coped somewhat better (partly due to better 
experience).


> Also, I'm thinking about buying one of Sun boxes that go for around 40 
> quid, on eBay. Sparkes, you've got one of these, haven't you? Any 
> pros/cons you can think of?
> 

I've always thought of buying a sparc, but I had an alpha and didn't 
really make any great use of that (did who ever picked it up from me a 
few months ago make any use of it?). Once you install Linux on it (Tru64 
is a bit hard to buy) it's really no different from a normal PC once 
you've had a play with the BIOS stuff (ARM?).

I'm tempted to get a mini-itx box though, they can be fanless (peace and 
quiet) and have 3 onboard nics, excellent for a firewall etc.

David.