[luau] SparcStation IPX

[MonMotha]

Dustin Cross wrote:
> Aloha,
> 
> OpenBSD (http://www.openbsd.org/) is great on old sun hardware.  Solaris is
> real slow on an IPX and old versions of Solaris don't come with all the
> great tools we are used to with Linux.  If you were in Hawaii I could let
> you borrow Solaris (2.5.1, 2.6, or 2.7, I don't think 2.8 dropped support
> for IPX), but I think OpenBSD performs much better.  Much less overhead, it
> has X and works fine (but slow) with the CGSix graphics card.  The only
> problem with 8-bit color is everything in the background has crazy colors,
> but the window in focus is fine.
> 
> If you want to stick with Linux, SuSE (download the ISOs here
> ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/sparc/suse-sparc/) is the only up to date
> distro, or you could try Gentoo for Sparc
> (http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo/releases/build/1.1a/)
> , it might take a year to compile, so I would use the stage3 install.
> 
> My opinion is that OpenBSD is the best on old Sun hardware.  Plus you could
> check out PF.
> 
> Dusty

Can OpenBSD do an FTP/HTTP/NFS install?  I forgot to mention that in the 
requirements as I lack an external SCSI CD-ROM drive :)

I have no problem with using a BSD (I have an OpenBSD box that I tinker 
with on occasion). In fact, as I mentioned, I was considering NetBSD 
(after all, it'll run on anything, right? :)  NetBSD caught my eye 
because I know it has an FTP install option.  The probelm I get into is 
I have no idea how to make a Sun disklabel and their installer seems to 
be only able to MODIFY a disklabel, not create one.

Gentoo for Sparc I've considered (just redid my desktop to Gentoo, 
though still ironing the kinks out as me and package managers don't get 
along well), though the install procedure isn't quite done yet (they 
mention using an already bootable Debian install, and of course there's 
only room for one HDD in that small lunchbox case) and doesn't support X 
on it apparently.  Also, Linux apparently has some issues with the Sun4c 
archetecture.

--MonMotha