razzell@cs.ubc.ca (Dan Razzell) (11/23/89)
In article <3116@brazos.Rice.edu>, CCAT@UDESVM.BITNET (Anh-Tuan Truong) writes: > Could anyone tell me : > - what is the difference between SUNos 4.0.3c ( for Sparcstation 1 ) > and SUNOS 4.0.3 for SPARC ( SUN 4/110 ) > - If I could install SUNOS 4.0.3c on my SUN 4/110 ? In article <3118@brazos.Rice.edu>, felina!pjg@relay.eu.net writes: > My questions are: > - Can we run SunOS 3.5 on the 3/80 ? If yes, is it binary compatible > with the version running on the 3/50s ? > - Can we run SunOS Sys4 3.2 on the SparcStation ? If yes, is it binary > compatible with the 4/110s ? You have probably already heard that there are significant architectural differences between the Sparcstation and the older Sun-4 products such as the 4/110. From the point of view of user code, the differences are transparent. At kernel level, the machines are quite distinct. A similar story holds for the 3/80 compared to the other Sun-3 products. The SunOS 4.0.3c release is the first one to support the sun4c Sparcstation architecture. The plain 4.0.3 release first introduced support for the sun3x architecture used in the 3/80. SunOS 4.X binaries cannot be used under SunOS 3.X. They are not downwards compatible. Consequently: 1) You can't run SunOS < 4.0.3 on a Sun 3/80, and you can't take 4.X code and run it under SunOS 3.5. 2) You can't run SunOS < 4.0.3c on a Sparcstation, and you can't take 4.X code and run it under SunOS Sys4 3.2. 3) The 4.0.3c release just adds support for the new sun4c kernel architecture, so it is a superset of the plain 4.0.3 release. My understanding is that the kernel itself works on both sun4 and sun4c processors, and that system code outside the kernel which is specific to each architecture is set up for example in /export/exec/kvm/sun4 and /export/exec/kvm/sun4c. If your machine only needs to serve one architecture, these will simplify to /usr/kvm.
mjacob@sun.com (Matt Jacob) (12/01/89)
>3) The 4.0.3c release just adds support for the new sun4c kernel >architecture, so it is a superset of the plain 4.0.3 release. True. >My >understanding is that the kernel itself works on both sun4 and sun4c >processors, While there is a 80% identity of kernel code, the remaining 20% which is quite different (new OPEN BOOT prom support, (self configuring (heh-heh) kernels, new SCSI architecture, new bus type (SBus)), makes that statement a bit *mmmmmmmm*...... >and that system code outside the kernel which is specific to >each architecture is set up for example in /export/exec/kvm/sun4 and >/export/exec/kvm/sun4c. If your machine only needs to serve one >architecture, these will simplify to /usr/kvm. This is true. kvm is the place to put all kernel architecture specific userland programs.