Buying an entry level Sun machine. Advice please.

[ihsan]

Hello all,

I got a Sun's System Administrator and Network Administrator exams vouchers at a great discount yesterday and the offers are valid until the end of the year. I did not asked about the training courses neither did I aware of any as of this time of writing. I'm going to call Sun Education center at the start of the next weekday to inquire about it. Most of the big companies here place a good value on a Sun-certified admin, hence the reason why I'm planning to take this course of action and while at that, get a tax exemption on behalf of my parents while they are still liable for it.

To start off, I don't have any prior experience with Solaris aside from seeing the cover CD of Solaris 8 x86 and an old 17" Sun monitor, if those count . Having talked with the person that sold me the exam vouchers, my FreeBSD, OpenBSD and Linux backgrounds should ease the transition by a whole lot. He himself started with Free/OpenBSD and got himself Sun-certified not long after. But he had used a Sun at his workplace and I think that might have helped him.

I took a long peek at Sun Sparc website and I haven't got a clue on how to dissolve the configurations, as in which one is suitable for beginners. Too many Blades and Ultras. My requirement is just to learn Solaris as I don't plan to do any heavy duty job on it. Cost of course is paramount and if possible comes with a reasonable configuration. I'm not specifically looking for a new box, more like a used system, although it will not hurt having a shiny one. I don't know how cheap is cheap when it comes to Sun. My maximum budget is around RM 2,000 (USD 500) for a complete box, with monitor and input devices.

One final thing, I would like to avoid Solaris for Intel because I want to try a real Sun box.

Thank you in advance.

 

[blakerwry]

There's alot of Sparc stuff on ebay.. whole systems, parts, accesories....

But I'd suggest getting some research on what you need for your certification before you consider buying one. (You want to make sure it will meet your needs).

 

[Handruin]

I have no idea what the price would be, but people at work have Ultra 5's as their desktop workstation. Some have Ultra 30's but I know those DO cost a small fortune.

I just did a quick search and I see an Ultra 5 for $550 USD. I've never heard of this company, but at least it gives you an idea of the cost. The Ultra 5 is no longer sold new, but is still supported according to Sun.

I don't even know if an Ultra 5 will suite your needs, it's just something to look into.

 

[CougTek]

My requirement is just to learn Solaris as I don't plan to do any heavy duty job on it.

Which version of Solaris? I have Solaris 8 on CDs here, from the time the ISO were available freely on the Web. It works on a x86 platform, no need to buy a Sun box for it.

 

[CougTek]

One final thing, I would like to avoid Solaris for Intel because I want to try a real Sun box.

Dismiss my previous post, I missed the above.

 

[Handruin]

I almost did the same thing Coug. I was going tor recommend solaris x86 until I read the last line.

 

[ihsan]

But I'd suggest getting some research on what you need for your certification before you consider buying one. (You want to make sure it will meet your needs).

Definitely blake. I'm fairly convinced that a Sun certification would do me good during the next 2-3 years. Even if I don't really need it, it does give me an edge when proposing projects. I had a talk with a family friend last week during which he opined that a system administration certifications by any of the biggies (IBM, Sun, HP etc) are highly valuable asset that his company and by the way he implied it, many others covet.

I wouldn't have thought about taking these Sun exams if I didn't manage to get hold of the vouchers on the cheap, a tenth of their original prices. Now while it's good, I want to get it right the first time I'm doing it.

 

[honold]

i'd recommend a sparcstation 20 with a single sm81 cpu, 128mb of ram, an 8bm vsimm to enable the onboard video, cdrom drive, type 6 keyboard/mouse, a 4.5 or 9.1g 10k sca scsi drive, and a sun trinitron 17" monitor

you can get this extremely cheap, and it will run solaris 9 (as well as openbsd, netbsd, linux, etc) very well.

a step up would be something along the lines of an ultra 1 170e or 200e with a creator3d upa frame buffer. the 64-bitness doesn't do as much as you think it does for single cpus, though, and it's been my experience that the faster chips run solaris worse than a ss20 (this has been observed many times by many people)

 

[Mercutio]

I've got a Sparc 20 I'd be willing to sell, and its specs are better than the one honold quoted (SMP, 512MB, 9GB Cheetah).

Oh. Wait, ihsan, you're in east Asia somewhere.

Never mind me, too.

All I can say is stay away from the little Sun Blade units. They're the cheapest thing to buy new (under US$1000), but from a practical standpoint you'd be better off with an actual SparcStation or Ultra machine. Either a Sparc 20 or an Ultra 5 should be a reasonable purchase.

 

[.Nut]

...I'm not specifically looking for a new box, more like a used system, although it will not hurt having a shiny one. I don't know how cheap is cheap when it comes to Sun. My maximum budget is around RM 2,000 (USD 500) for a complete box, with monitor and input devices...

If you want a "shiny new box," you would have no choice but to go for the Sun Blade 100. But, the last I heard, the price was closer to around US$900 - without monitor. However, the Blade 100 is designed to use an ordinary PC monitor, provided that it can operate at a resolution of at least 1024x768. It will, of course, run the latest version of Solaris, which is included with the system.

One problem about buy TOO old of a Sparc system is that the older Sparc processors can only boot Solaris 2.6 or earlier. The last of these would be the Sparcstation series and Sparc IPX. I believe the used market price on older Sparc boxes are usually very low (< $100) just for the fact that they can't run any version of Solaris later than 2.6.

 

[ihsan]

Thank you guys for the referrals.

Mercutio, thanks anyway for the offer but buying outside isn't an option for me at the moment. Most of the Sun resellers here do have used and refurbished products on sale, so I'd go to them. I have bought large products from the States, so no worries for me here, in case you were wondering.

I'm looking at a Sparc 20 just as honold suggested because the price I was quoted just now for a similar spec but with a 75 MHz CPU and a 4.5 7,200 RPM disk was very favourable. Ultra 5s and 10s came with super duper components that made the prices a little hard to lump.

Blade was way too expensive for my taste even for a refurb unit, Blade 100. I got only so much to start with.

Thanks again guys. I've always knew that I can rely on you.

 

[ihsan]

One problem about buy TOO old of a Sparc system is that the older Sparc processors can only boot Solaris 2.6 or earlier. The last of these would be the Sparcstation series and Sparc IPX. ....

http://docs.sun.com/db/doc/816-1664-10/6m82lv9lf?a=view

I'm fixing my attention on a Sparcstation 20 and according to the page above, the configuration is supported.

Thanks Gary for the heads up. I wouldn't have known it by fact if not for the page above.

 

[honold]

it is completely supported for solaris9, but it remains to be seen how much longer the sun4m platform will be officially supported.

that being said, you will still get tons of value out of the system on non-solaris operating systems for years and years to come. most solaris shops are running 2.6 or 7 anyway, at least where i am.

 

[James]

I have an Ultra 5 (333MHz, 256MB, 9GB, CDROM, mouse and keyboard) I'm happy to sell you for USD300+shipping If you're interested.

 

[ihsan]

I have an Ultra 5 (333MHz, 256MB, 9GB, CDROM, mouse and keyboard) I'm happy to sell you for USD300+shipping If you're interested.

Tempting indeed, James.

I'm sorry for being daft but when you wrote USD 300, does it include the freight charge? My English comprehension isn't that good yet.

 

[timwhit]

It does not include the shipping.

 

[Platform]

One problem about buy TOO old of a Sparc system is that the older Sparc processors can only boot Solaris 2.6 or earlier. The last of these would be the Sparcstation series and Sparc IPX. ....

http://docs.sun.com/db/doc/816-1664-10/6m82lv9lf?a=view

I'm fixing my attention on a Sparcstation 20 and according to the page above, the configuration is supported.

Thanks Gary for the heads up. I wouldn't have known it by fact if not for the page above.

I believe now that what I was *trying* to say a few days (or is it daze?) ago was... <cough>


* Sparcstation II pizza box, IPX, etc...


The next generation of Sparcstation after the II were the Sparcstation 5, 10, 20 pizza boxes.

The processor in the Sparcstation II is what's referred to as a "Type 2 Processor" -- I believe -- unless the memory cells in me noggin that originally contained that Sun microprocessor information have somehow merged with the memory cells in me noggin that contain certain informations about Adobe Type 1 and Type 2 fonts. If this is true, a Type 1 processor would then be Motorola 68000. If Solaris 9 *could* run on a Sparcstation II, you would grow tired of the Sparcstation II quickly because it's as slow as or slower than a 486.

Ironically, I briefly used a Sparcstation 20 running Solaris 9 just a couple of weeks ago. The speed of a Sparcstation 20 running Solaris 9 is generally pretty easy to live with overall. PS: Sun 2 or Sun 3 boxes (Motorola 68000 Suns) weren't too slow, but then again, they ran the old barebones SunOS.

 

[James]

I provided a bit of a song of joy on the subject of the SunBlade 100s back on SR before the ... unfortunate event we won't discuss. They are very nice boxes, albeit cheaply made, but they go like the clappers and they are really a bargain basement price.

Ihsan, I guess shipping to your part of the world would probably be about USD60-70 but I can check if you're interested. The Ultra 5 is a heavy box unfortunately because of the metal casing. It certainly has a decent turn of speed and if you do want to try out 64bit code it has a suitable processor.

Funny really, I started up my first ISP on a Sparcserver 20 running Solaris 2.1 in 1992 or thereabouts. We uncovered so many bugs in the OS - including the fact that the DNS resolver didn't understand MX records! - and lodged so many faults that Sun flew up an engineer from the States because we were complaining so much. His attitude at the beginning was that we didn't know what we were talking about ("all of Sun runs on these things, I think we'd know if the resolver was broken..."). By lunchtime on the first day he had called up Cupertino with one category 0 problem (stop writing any new code, stop writing patches, concentrate on fixing this one problem) and seventeen category ones. Sun had to delay the launch of Solaris 2.3, but at least the resolver worked. (Turned out that all of Sun's mail boxes were still running SunOS 4...) But Solaris 2.4 onwards has been a pretty solid product.